The Green New Deal in the United States: What it is and how to pay for it

Abstract

The US Green New Deal (GND) resolution introduced by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey is the first comprehensive program combining climate change mitigation and the elimination of economic inequality that could, conceivably, soon be adopted as policy in a major economy. We outline its main features, together with Senator Bernie Sanders’ more detailed, fully costed version, exploring its implications for policymaking and social science-based energy research. We focus on two of its most striking characteristics: its macroeconomics; and its inextricable linkage of climate change mitigation and the reduction of economic inequality. We find Sanders’ GND economically credible and argue that the GND's use of Keynesian demand-side macroeconomics challenges governments, policymakers and citizens to think anew about the nature of money. We suggest social scientists need to challenge neoclassical economic assumptions, which, we argue, enable both climate destruction and inequality to continue. We find the GND's combining of climate protection and equality credible, and argue that shifting the debate away from neoclassical understandings of public debt to careful assessments of inflationary impacts and resource needs will generate more productive analysis. We offer these insights as a first look at the GND and challenge others to join in this research.