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Green New Deal

Proposed economic stimulus program

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Starting in the 2000s and especially since 2019, proposals for a "Green New Deal" have arisen in Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world. 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. In her 2012 campaign, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein became the first presidential candidate to run on a Green New Deal platform and has continued to do so in each of her campaigns since then. 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 Senate. In 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.

History

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. During this period, the concept of green politics emerged as a result of increasing awareness and concern surrounding issues of climate change. The public contended that the US needed to address the climate crisis with a large-scale initiative, similar to the New Deal that was implemented under the Roosevelt administration. This sparked the emergence of various proposals on an international scale, particularly in the UK coalition and the UN Environmental Programme. In the 1980s, the UN promoted the concept of "sustainable development" to frame environmentalism as an economic and social policy, contributing to later efforts by the UK such as the 2008 Climate Change Act. This act was a targeted, preemptive measure against climate change and contributed to a sustainability transition within the US. The Green New Deal ultimately emerged as a result of an increasingly political historical context that was undergoing a sustainability transition.

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 that 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. While the discussion of the Green New Deal was relevant and widespread during this time, there were limitations to fully implementing it within the context of the Obama campaign. The framework of this initiative was weak, and primarily existed as a response to growing concern surrounding the climate crisis that had been accelerated due to increased reliance on fossil fuel extraction and consumption.

In 2009, the economist Edward Barbier authored the United Nations’ Global Green New Deal, which was a strategy for greening the global economic recovery after the Great Recession. He further elaborated on this strategy in a 2010 book. By the 2009 European Parliament election, the European Green Party's manifesto was titled A Green New Deal for Europe and called for:

a Europe of solidarity that can guarantee its citizens a good quality of life based on economic, social, and environmental sustainability; a truly democratic Europe that acts for its citizens and not just narrow industry interests; a Europe that acts for a green future.

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.

In late 2018/ early 2019, a series of extreme weather events led to the official "rebirth" of the Green New Deal, reflecting the sense of urgency that reverberated throughout the global population that struggled with addressing the consequences of climate change. The Green New Deal can be considered a product of a broader shift towards environmentalism and action against climate change. According to historian and urban policy specialist Jon Bloomfield, "the Green New Deal was reborn in February 2019 as a package of proposed US legislation linking radical environmental and economic programmes, presented by Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Edward Markey."

COVID-19 recovery programs

By 2019, international calls for a Green New Deal had already become 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 IPCC 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."

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