Greens will work to replace the western economic liberal model, which is fossil fuel based, car-centred, energy inefficient, promotes the over exploitation of natural resources, encourages a throwaway society, creates social injustice and is not viable any longer.

Public services like health and education have to be strengthened and made accessible to all.

Markets need to be regulated in order to reduce the environmental footprint of our economies. Prices have to reflect the real costs including the social and ecological costs.
Taxation of labour has to be shifted to taxation of pollution. Eco-taxes have to be implemented on fossil fuels as well as on polluting and otherwise environmentally destructive activities. This will facilitate job creation.

Emission cap and trade schemes and eco-bonuses are good instruments to complement eco-taxes.

Environmentally damaging subsidies have to be replaced by investment in low carbon solutions and renewable energy production. The use of non-renewable raw materials has to be replaced wherever possible by renewable ones.

Humanity’s ecological footprint is already greater than this planet can sustain and is still growing (more than 1 according to the WWF’s definition). Reducing this footprint is imperative. Reduction should come primarily from industrialized countries, which are the greatest per capita polluters (where the ecological footprint is already over 3 or in some cases even 5 according to the WWF’s definition). Greens affirm that the only acceptable target from the perspective of real worldwide solidarity is the convergence of the per capita footprint towards 1.