What it means to take bold and imaginative climate action
Taking stock of the most promising energy policy proposals
Hi all,
As the ground is shifting beneath us, I’m shaking things up a little for the next few issues. I’ll take a step back from the social science literature to fulfil a promise I made at the beginning of this year to take the most promising policy proposals as guides for the reviews in this newsletter. It would allow me to shed some questions like: what could be the social life of these proposals? What kinds of things we should be looking out for, as policy-makers, practitioners and, to a certain degree, as researchers?
I’ll use the upcoming issues to work through that policy literature, so it will look a little more like notes and queries, but I do hope that they will also help you think about the larger questions and context that (should) shape our work.
I will start with the Green New Deal.
Long-time friends of this newsletter will not be surprised, as I have written before that the Green New Deal is unique for being the only policy framework officially proposed that truly recognizes the scope of what we have to do.
Part of that recognition is that it understands that energy – its production and consumption – is deeply and inextricably embedded in the structures of our societies. That means that you can’t, say, swap out a coal plant for a set of wind turbines, or decarbonize heavy industry, or drastically reduce the energy footprint of residential units without thoroughly reworking our institutions, revamping economic policy, or in fact preparing a whole new social contract between government and citizens.
In other words, authors of the Green New Deal realize that if we want to take Paris seriously, if we want to prevent the worst of the climate crisis, then we need systemic change not just ‘within’ the energy system (however you want to arbitrarily draw up those boundaries), but within our societies as a whole.
The Green New Deal has been adopted by some democrats in the US; the Labour Party in the UK (under the perhaps somewhat unfortunate title of Green Industrial Revolution (hear Adrienne Buller reflect on this framing on Politics Theory Other); the German Green party, which used the term in its latest EU campaign and seems to have integrated it all but in name it into its national program; as well as DiEM25, which also ran on a Green New Deal campaign (and subsequently criticized the European Green Deal on that basis).
All in all, two good reasons to spend some more time on the GND: both its unique vision and its moderate momentum and thus political potential.*
‘Sounds good. Remind me, real quick, though?’
Sure. Here is the broader political vision of the Green New Deal:
Recognizing the urgency of the crisis, it advocates taking assertive, bold and creative action towards a brighter future:
Assertive in the sense that sustainability transitions are highly political: they go beyond ‘technocratic’ and incremental adjustments and thus require shifts in power. In turn, that also means clearly taking aim at fossil interests that oppose change;
Bold in the sense that transitions encompass more than replacing coal plants with wind turbines;
Creative in the sense that the fact that the environment intersects with the social, economic and political means tackling the climate crisis should allow us to liberate ourselves from the more crippling inequalities that capitalism has produced. It is an opportunity to build a society organized around a good life for all.
It’s the ABC of the GND.
(Yikes. Sorry about that.)
What I’ll be looking at
A lot of work has been done since Ocasio-Cortez & Markey submitted their resolution and catapulted the Green New Deal onto the public and political stage. I’ll be starting with Aranoff et al.’s A Planet to Win. I’ll also go through the other main books on this topic, by Naomi Klein, Jeremy Rifkin and Ann Pettifor. In addition, Common Wealth is hammering out details for a UK Green New Deal and Governor Jay Inslee has gone wonk-deep in concrete policy translations, so I might have a gander around his site too.
If you see I’m missing something crucial, send me word.
For now, I hope you’re finding your favourite snug spot at home to cuddle up with a loved one and/or a beloved book (do and, if at all possible), while you help flatten the still steeply rising corona curve. I will be back to distract you with more all new green deals on Wednesday.
Marten
* There are of course also other more or less comprehensive policy packages like Drawdown and to a more limited extent The Energy Policy Simulator and I will be subsequently be delving into them as well. The aim as always is to mobilize social science to point out opportunities and pitfalls when translating policy ideas into actual policies that will hit the ground.