A Green New Deal: Opportunities and Constraints

Mapping the social dimension of the European Green Deal

“…While some studies find that the EGD could substantively boost the creation of ‘green jobs’ (García Vaquero et al, 2021), provide major health and environmental benefits (Haines and Scheelbeek, 2020), create ‘green markets’ (Sikora, 2021) or support at least some ‘greening’ of the transport sector (Koralova-Nozharova, 2021), a broad literature also criticizes the EGD for not being sufficiently transformative. Here, some authors oscillate between hope and disappointment regarding the EGD's potential to develop into a Green New Deal with strong environmental and social impact (Kedward and Ryan-Collins, 2022; Schepelmann, 2022). Others stress the low compatibility of the EGD's green growth model with the de- or postgrowth approaches it would need to take in order to combat the climate crisis effectively (Haas et al, 2022; Ossewaarde and Ossewaarde-Lowtoo, 2020).…”

How inequality fuels climate change: The climate case for a Green New Deal

“…3,4,6,7 Under current macroeconomic conditions, government investment in GND-related outlays is an attractive option, given the value of these investments and the large potential multiplier effects of government stimulus. 8,124 This raises the question of how such outlays can be financed, and the trade-offs implicit in such decisions. Governments that issue their own currency do not need to first raise sufficient revenue to ''pay for'' their expenditure.…”

“…3,6,125 Existing macroeconomic institutions, such as central banks, need to be ''greened'' so that monetary policy favors low-carbon sectors, while dedicated investment institutions, such as mission-oriented green investment banks, are also needed to make strategic investments in innovative low-carbon technologies and companies. 7,8 GND objectives would be further supported by sustainable national accounting and corporate reporting frameworks and genuine progress indicators. 127 Finally, national-level GNDs need a foreign policy agenda, since the causes of climate change and socioeconomic inequalities have important global dimensions.…”

“…For example, a GND foreign policy might seek to facilitate sharing green technologies and intellectual property with poorer countries, liberalize trade in green technologies and restrict trade in carbon-intensive goods and services, increase cross-border and local public investment in decarbonized social provisioning systems and climate adaptation, curtail cross-border financing of fossil fuels and other carbon-intensive projects, close tax havens and loopholes, provide debt relief/restructuring, and establish global tax floors. 3,4,8,116,128,129 GNDs as good politics We now turn to the political case for GNDs. We begin by setting out the political strategy, or theory of change, associated with the carbon-centric policy paradigm and then compare this with the political strategy associated with GNDs.…”

“…The state is understood as legitimately playing a central and active role in ''creating,'' ''shaping,'' and ''steering'' markets-through its investments in public goods and services, its laws and regulations, monetary and fiscal policy settings, public procurement, and its capacities for innovation-in pursuit of broad social goals and specific missions. 3,[5][6][7][8] These social goals are envisaged as including universal provision of the resources and services that meet people's basic needs and enable them to live flourishing lives; reducing economic inequalities; and redressing legacies of racial, colonial and gender oppression. 4,9 In this regard, GND proposals herald a return to the assumption of the inherent interconnectedness of the environmental, social, and economic domains that underlies the concept of sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals.…”