Climate advisers call for work and training in low-carbon heating, water efficiency and flood-protection

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Restarting the economy and getting people back to work after the coronavirus lockdown should focus on low-carbon work programmes, the UK government’s climate advisers have urged.

They said this would generate new jobs, protect the climate and ensure a fairer economy for everyone.

Related: Green stimulus can repair global economy and climate, study says

Related: Airlines and oil giants are on the brink. No government should offer them a lifeline | George Monbiot

Income subsidies

The Treasury cannot afford to spend £10bn a month indefinitely, but a cliff-edge end to Covid-19 wage subsidies is not the answer

What’s the safest way for Rishi Sunak to wind down his wage-support furlough scheme? Well, start by finding the correct language. The imagery in the current political talk about “weaning” businesses off an “addiction” is absurd.

When the chancellor introduced the coronavirus job retention scheme on 20 March, he said it was to “protect, as far as possible, people’s jobs and incomes”. There will be trouble if, less than two months later and with lockdown still in place, companies and their workers are portrayed as needy infants or addicts who should know better.

Business models reliant on maximum footfall are at odds with social distancing, leaving space for local shops and mutual aid

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With most local shops shuttered and online sales booming, it’s easy to imagine that coronavirus will deal a mortal blow to the high street. The images of empty public spaces that have come to define this crisis could be a warning of what life will be like after the lockdown, when people will fear crowds and social distancing will continue, either through self-policing or government directive.

The decline of public life is one of the biggest casualties of Covid-19. Zoom, Amazon and Netflix are unlikely to replace our human craving for it. Public discourse has shrunk to encompass the virus, while our daily lives have retreated into the private domestic sphere. Streets and public places, high streets in particular, are the physical setting for public life, and the impact of the virus is that life lived outside – socialising, shopping, working – has been almost entirely curtailed.

Social preferences, economic realities and government policy will shape the future of the high street

Related: 'It's really shocking': UK cities refusing to reveal extent of pseudo-public space