Last Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey introduced a resolution that maps out a blueprint for defeating the dangers of a changing climate while reordering the U.S. economy for the next 100 years.
Dubbing their plan a Green New Deal, the Democratic duo presented it as a successor to the economic program that President Franklin Roosevelt charted to lead the U.S. out of the Great Depression.
The parallel fits. According to a report released last October by an intergovernmental panel on climate change, global temperatures must remain below 1.5 degrees Celsius above levels that predate the Industrial Revolution if the Earth is to avoid the most severe impacts of a changing climate. Those impacts would include, among other things, rising sea levels, wildfires, the loss of nearly all coral reefs, damage to infrastructure and property, billions of dollars in lost economic output in the U.S. alone, and mass migration from the regions most affected.
According to the panel, countering such climate change will require a reduction in emissions of greenhouse gasses from human sources by between 40 and 60 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and net emissions that total zero 20 years thereafter. The U.S. contributed a fifth of all greenhouse gasses emitted through 2014.
Ocasio-Cortez and Markey also note that the U.S. has experienced a decades-long slide into economic stagnation and rising inequality.
“Climate change constitutes a direct threat to the national security of the United States by impacting the economic, environmental, and social stability of countries and communities around the world, and by acting as a threat multiplier,” the resolution says.
With that as background, the Green New Deal aims put the U.S. on a course to achieve “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions” and “to create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity for all people of the United States.”
The roadmap
The plan, which the sponsors envision enacting through varied pieces of legislation, would aim to:
Improve the infrastructure of the U.S. to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible
Meet all power demand through renewable energy, and build or upgrade to so-called smart power grids
Upgrade all buildings to achieve maximum energy efficiency
Promote the growth of clean manufacturing
Support family and sustainable farming
Overhaul transportation systems to eliminate pollution with investment in technologies such as high-speed rail
Mitigate and manage long-term adverse effects of pollution on communities
Promote storage of carbon in the soil and reforestation, as well as restore and protected threatened ecosystems
Clean hazardous waste sites
Promote the sharing of technology, expertise and funding among nations with the aim of making the U.S. a leader on climate action
Prioritize the creation of high-wage jobs in communities that may struggle during the transition away from greenhouse gasses, as well as strengthening the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively
Guarantee all Americans a job with a livable wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacation and financial security in retirement
Ensure the protection of public lands and waters, as well as the consent of indigenous people for decisions that affect them and their territories
Promote competition through antitrust
Providing all Americans with high-quality health care; affordable, safe housing; economic security; access to clean water and air; affordable food; and nature.