Green New Deal proposals: Comparing emerging transformational climate policies at multiple scales

Abstract

Green New Deal (GND) policy proposals that simultaneously address the climate crisis and economic inequity by prioritizing job creation have been developed for multiple different levels of government in jurisdictions around the world. The United States federal GND originally introduced to Congress by Representative Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey in 2019 has received the most attention. Since then, however, multiple other climate policy proposals that share the GND’s integrated multi-sectoral approach have emerged. To date, there has been minimal comparative assessment of these different proposals that build from a GND framework. As cities, regions, and countries around the world plan recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and respond to worsening economic inequities, racial injustices, and climate disruptions, the need to study policies that simultaneously address environmental, economic, and social issues with an integrated approach is stronger than ever. This paper reviews 14 GND-style policy proposals across multiple levels of government, from municipal to multi-national, comparing their structure, level of detail, and goals. We find that GND frameworks are emerging as a new, multi-faceted policy approach to confront the complex, multiple drivers of climate change with greater scope than traditional market-based and behavior-based strategies.