Labour members have launched a grassroots campaign to push the party to adopt a radical Green New Deal to transform the UK economy, tackle inequality and address the escalating climate crisis.

The group, inspired by the success of the Sunrise Movement and the Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the US, is calling on Labour to commit to radical action to decarbonise the UK economy within a decade.

A spokesperson for the group, called Labour for a Green New Deal, said: “Climate change is fundamentally about class, because it means chaos for the many while the few profit.

“We’re starting a campaign to put the labour movement at the forefront of a green transformation in Britain, and to build grassroots support for a Green New Deal within the Labour party.”

The campaign is calling for a region-specific green jobs guarantee, a significant expansion of public ownership and democratic control of industry, as well as mass investment in public infrastructure.

Last year, the shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, told the Guardian a future Labour government would oversee an economic revolution to tackle the climate crisis, using the full power of the state to decarbonise the economy and create hundreds of thousands of green jobs in struggling towns and cities.

The group intends to put pressure on the party to fulfil those pledges in the run-up to the Labourconference in September. It is mobilising support through local party and trade union branches and said members in more than 70 constituency Labour parties are signed up.

Leading members of the group recently met Zack Exley, an adviser to Ocasio-Cortez and a co-founder of the progressive group the Justice Democrats, to learn from the success of the Green New Deal campaign in the US.

They are also in discussions with founding members of the Sunrise Movement, the youth-led group linked with Ocasio-Cortez that has been at the forefront of the US campaign for a Green New Deal.

The spokesperson said: “As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement have argued in the US, a Green New Deal shouldn’t just be about decarbonising our economy; it should be a radical vision for a healthier, happier and more prosperous society.

“According to the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], we may only have 11 years left to limit the worst of the climate crisis. But that’s 11 years in which we could change everything.”

• This article was amended on 22 March 2019 to remove some personal information.