A coalition of organizers and representatives are relaunching the push for a Green New Deal with a national tour, one year after the passage of the much-lauded Inflation Reduction Act.
John Paul Mejia, a national spokesperson for the youth-led climate justice organization the Sunrise Movement, one of the groups hosting the tour said “The Inflation Reduction Act was the largest climate investment in US history,” “But for the next 10 years, we should work to make [it] the smallest by winning stuff that’s much larger.”
The tour, which kicks off with an event in Michigan this month, is intended to showcase widespread support for even bolder federal climate action, and will feature Green New Deal champions including Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts and the representatives Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and Summer Lee alongside local advocates.
According to reports, It will be led by the Green New Deal Network, a coalition of progressive environmental groups that include the Sunrise Movement, Greenpeace and Climate Justice Alliance, social justice organizations such as People’s Action and the Movement for Black Lives, and the small left-liberal Working Families political party.
Supporters are calling for stronger executive action as well as the passage of a suite of proposals in Congress.
“With our Green New Deals for public schools, housing, cities and more, we can make historic investments that transform our communities by repairing damage done by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis and giving every person the resources they need to thrive,” said Representative Bowman.
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The Green New Deal – which is a plan to rapidly and fairly decarbonize the US economy and create millions of jobs in the process – swept the US progressive political scene during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Recall that the Sunrise Movement in 2018 held sit-ins on Capitol Hill calling for its implementation, and months later, Markey and the New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled an official resolution fleshing out the proposal.
Among other things, the ambitious, sweeping vision hinged on the idea that tackling the climate crisis could entail the remaking of US society to be more just, prioritizing communities most affected by inequality, climate disasters and pollution. It sharply contrasted with previous national decarbonization plans, such as the failed 2009 attempt to create a cap-and-trade system for planet-heating pollution known as Waxman-Markey.
“During that ‘Inconvenient Truth’ era, climate advocacy was very technocratic in some ways,” said Kaniela Ing, the national director of the Green New Deal Network and a former Hawaii state legislator, referring to the 2006 documentary on the climate crisis by the former US vice-president Al Gore. “But the Green New Deal was about how all these things are connected, how climate is connected to schools, better infrastructure … things that people actually want.”
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
