GREEN NEW DEAL

“HALF A DEGREE MATTERS”

The Green Deal (“The first step of a plan that is mostly yet to be written”) is basically just a
present scenario explained by some scientists and policymakers to explain what’s the current
situation of the earth is and what impact human-activities have on the earth. Firstly, it was
assumed that if the temperature of the earth increases in the range of +1.5*C - +2*C, it is safe,
and we will be safe until its under 2*C. But the present research indicates that the previous
assumptions were wrong and it is dangerous to be in this limit and its impact on Earth would be
the irreversible changes we will be creating and if we go beyond this line, it would lead to a spike
in mass migration, wildfires, deadly heat stress and will cost us trillions of dollars and millions of
lives. The impact of these changes would be irreversible that cannot be undone in centuries and
these are the changes which will be done if we stay in this range but we are on a track to go way
past that line.
“AND FOR A FACT WE DON’T HAVE A PLAN TO MANAGE THIS”
“AND THIS IS A PLAN WHICH WE MIGHT NOT WANT TO HEAR”
So, a group of activists started to make one, recruiting a Congresswoman (Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez) and a Senator (Ed Markley) to turn it into a Congressional resolution.
The Green New Deal is a 14-page resolution and to understand what’s in it, it is important to
understand what’s not in it. The deal is not a BILL, not a legislation, not a proposed proposal, but
an idea to understand what our shared understanding of the problem is and what’s necessary to
solve it. The GND contains basically 2 big ideas, firstly it is the question of what needs to be done
to solve the present impending climate crisis and for that, the climatologists and the GND say the
same thing, i.e., to completely stop burning the fossil fuels as much as technologically feasible. So,
implementing this plan means “Rethinking vehicles, energy efficiency standards for buildings,
changing the ways we make steel and concrete” as told by Rhiana Gunn Wright, the thinktank
behind the GND, indicating a shift to electric vehicles, making homes that are energy efficient and
food to be grown locally. The GND requires us to build a lot of new things that power the world
without fossil fuels and will create a lot of new jobs, new industries, an entire new economy. For
this to be done, we have to rethink the ways we use energy in our society which will involves
bearing the cost which will be like a massive undertaking. A key principle in the GND says “It is too
late to incrementally move away from fossil fuels” which means that we are way past the time
when we could think of slowly and gradually moving away from fossils fuels and shifting to
alternative cleaner sources of energy. At present, we need to move away from fossils fuels
quickly. We need to clearly understand the idea of “ZERO-EMISSIONS” i.e. zero oil business, zero
natural gas business, no coal business, no internal combustion engine auto business. “The number
zero means it all has to go”. But what decarbonising will do is that when we are going to rip out
fossils fuels from the economy people will lose their jobs, eventually losing their healthcare and
maybe their homes. Secondly, GND acknowledges that transitioning Americans away from fossils
fuels is a huge and difficult task especially at the time when there are so many lives in economic
uncertainty. This contradicts what the GND explains in the part “which might now want to hear it”
i.e. we need to take action and doing so will cause us pain. For example, imagine if you are a coal
worker and government decide to decarbonize coal industry, you are going to suffer. This is where
the second part of the deal comes into play. It is a set of promises for how Americans will be
protected during the transition phase, away from the fossil fuels the deals contains “Job
Guarantee, Public employment, Universal healthcare, education and training” and these aren’t
promises for the people who are going to lose jobs but it is for keeping inequality from getting
even worse during the transition, for think about the direction, wealth and power usually flow in
i.e., when new things are built- it is the communities with the most political clout that get to
decide where things can and can’t be built. Wealthy corporations jump in to build those projects
and good jobs go to the people who can afford to get trained for them. If we don’t look for that, it
will just create a replica of issues which are presently pertaining in the society, and hence role of
the GND is defined to rebuild the economy in such a way that it allows opportunity to flow more
fairly and the people who deserve, get what they want and none of the people are left untapped
especially the poor people and the people based on cast or colour.
So, in a nutshell, the first half of the GND is a set of goals to avoid global disaster and the second
half focuses on the way that helps ordinary Americans come out on the better side that concludes
the 14 pages initiative. It’s just the first step where the people and the congress have to decide
how to go from this 14 page resolution to an actual GND, an actual roadmap for the government
to see what it needs to do next to preserve the Earth for our future generations because if it goes
like this, the impact will be irreversible.