Courtesy : en.wikipedia.org
Green deal
Green New Deal (GND) proposals call for public policy to address climate change along with achieving other social aims like job creation and reducing economic inequality. The name refers back to the New Deal, a set of social and economic reforms and public works projects undertaken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression. The Green New Deal combines Roosevelt’s economic approach with modern ideas such as renewable energy and resource efficiency.
A prominent 2019 attempt to get legislation passed for a Green New Deal was sponsored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) during the 116th United States Congress, though it failed to advance in the SenateIn the European Union, a 2019 proposal from the European commission for a European Green Deal was supported by the European Council, and in January 2020, by the European Parliament as well.
Since the early 2000s, and especially since 2018, other proposals for a “Green New Deal” had arisen both in the United States and internationally.The first U.S. politician to run on a Green New Deal platform was Howie Hawkins of the Green Party when he ran for governor of New York in 2010. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein ran on a Green New Deal platform in 2012 and 2016.
History
Sustainable agriculture combined with renewable energy generation
Throughout the 1970s and 1990s, an economic policy to move the United States economy away from nonrenewable energy was developed by activists in the labor and the environmental movements.
An early use of the phrase “Green New Deal” was by journalist Thomas Friedman. He argued in favor of the idea in The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine. In January 2007, Friedman wrote:
If you have put a windmill in your yard or some solar panels on your roof, bless your heart. But we will only green the world when we change the very nature of the electricity grid – moving it away from dirty coal or oil to clean coal and renewables. And that is a huge industrial project – much bigger than anyone has told you. Finally, like the New Deal, if we undertake the green version, it has the potential to create a whole new clean power industry to spur our economy into the 21st century.[
Friedman expanded upon the idea in his September 2008 book Hot, Flat, and Crowded. This approach was taken up in Britain by the Green New Deal Group,which published its eponymous report on July 21, 2008.The concept was further popularized and put on a wider footing when the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) began to promote it internationally.
In early 2008, author Jeff Biggers launched a series of challenges for a Green New Deal from the perspective of his writings from coal country in Appalachia. Biggers wrote, “(then-presidential candidate) Obama should shatter these artificial racial boundaries by proposing a New ‘Green’ Deal to revamp the region and bridge a growing chasm between bitterly divided Democrats, and call for an end to mountaintop removal policies that have led to impoverishment and ruin in the coal fields.” Biggers followed up with other Green New Deal proposals over the next four years.
The Green Party of the United States and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein proposed a “Green New Deal” beginning in 2012.A Green New Deal remains officially part of the platform of the Green Party of the United States.
COVID-19 recovery programs
See also: Green recovery and COVID-19 pandemic
By 2019, international calls for a Green New Deal had already became more prominent. This reflected the popular support the GND had received in the US in late 2018, growing recognition of the global warming threat resulting from recent extreme weather events, the Greta effect and the IPPC 1.5 °C report. In addition to activity within conventional national & multilateral politics, there has been support for a Green New Deal within city diplomacy. In October 2019 the C40 committed to supporting a Global Green New Deal, announcing there will be determined action from all its 94 cities, with 30 cities having already peaked their emissions and progressing rapidly towards net-zero.
There were further proposals to include a GND, both in the US and internationally, in the recovery program for the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2020 however, the United Nations released a report saying that a high proportion of the world’s COVID-19 recovery stimulus was not going towards clean energy. UN secretary general António Guterres declared the world’s governments were “doubling down” on fossil fuels. As of 2021, commentators such as the Council on Foreign Relations have noted that in addition to climate-friendly policies being enacted in the U.S. by Joe Biden, other major economies such as China, India, and the European Union have also begun “implementing some of the policies envisioned by the Green New Deal.”
Environmental justice
Main article: Environmental justice
The 2019 United States congressional resolution Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey advocated for a “just transition”, counteracting previous systemic injustices that had disproportionally hurt vulnerable communities. Commentators have called for future Green New Deal-type programs to also emphasize environmental justice, both in the United States and overseas. Other commentators, while agreeing on the need for the incorporation of justice, have cautioned against excessive emphases on identity politics, or on bundling in too many economically progressive measures. They fear including too much in a GND package will make it harder to achieve broad based majority support. Polls had found that in 2019 the Ocasio-Cortez and Markey GND was initially supported by a majority of conservatives. Yet after a few months of hostile criticism by shows like Fox News for being excessively socialist, only about 35% of American conservatives remained in support.
Australia
The Australian Greens have advocated for a “Green Plan”, similar to the Green New Deal, since 2009.Deputy Leader Christine Milne discussed the idea on the ABC‘s panel discussion program Q&A on February 19, 2009, and it was the subject of a major national conference of the Australian Greens in 2009.
Canada
In early May 2019, with rising concerns about the need for urgent global environmental action to reduce potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, a non-partisan coalition of nearly 70 groups launched the Pact for a Green New Deal (New Deal vert au Canada in French). With press conferences in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, the coalition called for fossil fuel emissions to be halved by 2030.On May 16, 2019 the Green Party released a 5-page summary of their plan entitled “Mission: Possible: The Green Climate Action Plan”.
European Union
Main article: European Green Deal
On continental Europe, the European Spring coalition campaigned under the banner of a “Green New Deal” for the 2019 EU elections. In December 2019, the newly elected European Commission under Von der Leyen presented a set of policy proposals under the name European Green Deal. Compared to the United States plan, it has a less ambitious decarbonisation timeline, with an aim of carbon neutrality in 2050. The policy proposal involves every sector in the economy and the option of a border adjustment mechanism, a ‘carbon tariff’, is on the table to prevent carbon leakage from outside countries.
A pilot program for a four-day workweek, under development by Spain’s Valencian Regional Government, has been described as a “helpful counter to … fearmongering about the bleak, hamburger-free world climate activists are allegedly plotting to create with a Green New Deal.”
In April 2020 the European Parliament called to include the European Green Deal in the recovery program from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The proposals were criticised for falling short of the goal of ending fossil fuels, or being sufficient for a green recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. In its place, it has been proposed that the EU enacts a “Green New Deal for Europe”, which includes more investment, and changes the legal regulation that enables global warming from coal, oil, and gas to continue.
In July 2021, the European Commission released its “Fit for 55” legislation package, which contains important guidelines for the future of the automotive industry; all new cars on the European market must be zero-emission vehicles from 2035. According to European Commissioner for Climate Action Frans Timmermans, “the best answer” to the 2021 global energy crisis is “to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.”
South Korea
In 2020, after the Democratic Party won an absolute majority in the National Assembly, the leadership of the country began to advance a Green New Deal. It includes:
- Achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. South Korea is the first country in east Asia committing to this target.
- Expanding investments in renewable energy.
- Stopping investments in coal in the country and outside it.
- Establishing a carbon tax.
- Creating a Regional Energy Transition Centre to ensure that the coal workers will not suffer and will be transitioned to green jobs.
United Kingdom
In the UK, the Green New Deal Group and the New Economics Foundation produced the A Green New Deal report asking for a Green New Deal as a way out of the Global Financial Crisis back in 2008, demanding a reform of the financial and tax sectors and a revolution of the energy sector in the country. Also, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas, raised the idea during an economic debate in 2008.
In March 2019, Labour Party members launched a grassroots campaign called Labour for a Green New Deal. The aim of the group is to push the party to adopt a radical Green New Deal to transform the UK economy, tackle inequality and address the escalating climate crisis. It also wants 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.The group states that they got their inspiration from the Sunrise Movement and the work that congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has done in the US. Group members have met with Zack Exley, co-founder of the progressive group Justice Democrats, to learn from the experiences that he and Ocasio-Cortez have had in working for the Green New Deal campaign in the US.
On April 30, former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband joined Caroline Lucas and former South Thanet Conservative MP Laura Sandys in calling for a Green New Deal in the UK.The left-wing campaigning group Momentum also wish to influence the Labour Party’s manifesto to include a Green New Deal.
In September 2019, the Labour party committed to a Green New Deal at its 2019 annual conference. This included a target to decarbonise by 2030. Polling undertook by YouGov in late October 2019 found that 56% of British adults support the goal of making the UK carbon neutral by 2030 or earlier.
In July 2020, while the UK government promised a “green recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic, this was criticised as being insufficient, and lacking changes to regulation that enabled coal, oil, and gas pollution to continue. An alternative “Green Recovery Act”, widely endorsed by politicians and the media, was published by an academic and think tank group that would target nine fields of law reform, on transport, energy generation, agriculture, fossil fuels, local government, international agreement, finance and corporate governance, employment, and investment. This has the goal of establishing duties on all public bodies and regulators to end use of all coal, oil and gas “as fast as technologically practicable”, with strict exceptions if there are not yet technical alternatives.
United States
Early efforts
In 2006, a Green New Deal was created by the Green New Deal Task Force as a plan for one hundred percent clean, renewable energy by 2030 utilizing a carbon tax, a jobs guarantee, free college, single-payer healthcare, and a focus on using public programs.
Since 2006, the Green New Deal has been included in the platforms of multiple Green Party candidates, such as Howie Hawkins’ gubernatorial campaigns in 2010, 2014, and 2018, and Jill Stein’s 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns.