WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES - 2018/12/10: Protesters seen holding placards
during the Sunrise Movement protest inside the office of US Representative
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to advocate that Democrats support the Green New Deal,
at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. (Photo by Michael Brochstein/SOPA
Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The Green New Deal Takes Its First Congressional Baby Step, as Pelosi Mocks
"Green Dream or Whatever"
Kate Aronoff
February 7 2019, 1:03 p.m.
Sunrise Movement protesters advocate that Democrats support the Green New
Deal inside the office of Rep. Nancy Pelosi in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 10,
2018. Photo: Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The first hand of the Green New Deal has been dealt. Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on Thursday unveiled a
five-page, nonbinding resolution that frames a 10-year "national, social,
industrial, and economic mobilization" to confront the climate crisis.
The plan envisions the creation of millions of "good, high-wage jobs" and
will serve to "counteract systemic injustices."
The resolution sets a framework for legislation to be hashed out over the
next two years, and gives Ocasio-Cortez, Markey, and climate groups
something to organize around.
Their goal is to meet 100 percent of the demand for power in the U.S. with
"clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources," in line with the
scientific consensus on climate change, as well as to provide "all people of
the United States" with clean air and water, "healthy and affordable food,"
high-quality health care, "affordable, safe, and adequate housing," and
economic security.
As part and parcel of this transition, the resolution calls for a federal
jobs guarantee, a massive infrastructure build-out, building efficiency
upgrades and robust investment in public transit, to name just a few of the
measures listed. It would ensure a dignified quality of life for workers and
communities that rely on coal, oil, and natural gas jobs ("a fair and just
transition"), and says that steps toward reaching zero-emissions - such as
building new wind turbines - should not impose on indigenous peoples' land
rights or abuse the power of eminent domain. A full plan, the resolution
states, will be developed "in transparent and inclusive consultation,
collaboration, and partnership with frontline and vulnerable communities,
labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil society groups, academia, and
businesses."
The resolution provides the most detail yet of what Ocasio-Cortez and
company mean by a Green New Deal, but it does not map out precisely what a
Green New Deal will entail. If the House had created a Select Committee on a
Green New Deal, per Ocasio-Cortez's original resolution, that would have
been the two-yearlong mandate of a team of policymakers and experts. In
laying the groundwork for an eventual legislative package, the document will
create pressure on the select panel created by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in
lieu of the one called for by Ocasio-Cortez. Dubbed the Select Committee on
the Climate Crisis, it will be chaired by Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla.
Pelosi on Thursday morning announced Ocasio-Cortez would not be on that
select committee, though she was approached for a seat and declined to join.
In a separate interview with Politico, Pelosi mocked the notion of a Green
New Deal. "It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we
receive," she said. "The green dream or whatever they call it - nobody knows
what it is but they're for it right?"
Ocasio-Cortez, at a press conference unveiling the resolution, was asked
repeatedly about Pelosi's dig, but declined to hit back, saying that Pelosi
has long been a climate champion and the term "dream" is a compliment,
accurately capturing the scale of the vision, which she compared to the New
Deal and Great Society.
The resolution makes clear that the phrase isn't just a talking point, but
connected to a specific set of policy priorities.
A number of powerful Democrats were on hand for the resolution's
announcement, including the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee,
Ron Wyden of Oregon, whose committee has jurisdiction over swaths of a Green
New Deal. He pledged to "throw the dirty energy tax relics of yesteryear
into the garbage can."
Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., was also there to show
support. The Rules Committee controls what legislation hits the House floor.
Over the last few months, support for the Green New Deal has become a litmus
test for 2020 Democratic hopefuls, and the resolution serves dual purposes:
to unite lawmakers around the idea of a Green New Deal, and to offer a basic
definition of what that means. For 2020 contenders who have conceptually
supported the Green New Deal, the resolution makes clear that the phrase
isn't just a talking point, but connected to a specific set of policy
priorities. Confirmed and rumored presidential hopefuls Elizabeth Warren,
Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, and Bernie Sanders will be
among the nine senators co-sponsoring the resolution. Sixty-four House
Democrats will also be co-sponsoring the legislation, including Reps. Ro
Khanna, D-Calif., Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Joe Neguse, D-Colo.
"We're going to be pressuring all of the 2020 contenders to back this
resolution," said Stephen O'Hanlon, a spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement,
which helped launched the Green New Deal into the national spotlight with
its sit-in at Pelosi's office last November. "That'll make it clear who's
using the Green New Deal as a buzzword and who's actually serious about what
it entails. For our generation, the difference between the Green New Deal as
a buzzword and substantive policy is life and death." Indeed, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned last year that if massive
changes to limit global warming are not undertaken by 2030, the planet will
face widespread, catastrophic changes.
On Tuesday, the Sunrise Movement hosted some 500 watch parties around the
country for a livestream laying out its next steps to support the
resolution. As of Wednesday, the group was in the process of organizing
visits to 600 congressional offices nationwide, for constituents to demand
that their representatives co-sponsor Ocasio-Cortez and Markey's measure.
Supported by Justice Democrats - the group that backed Ocasio-Cortez's
primary run - Sunrise will also be launching a 15-city campaign tour through
early primary states.
The resolution's preamble lays out both the existential threat and expected
cost in dollars and lives to the U.S. posed by climate change, as well as
"several related crises" facing the United States, including "a 4-decade
trend of wage stagnation, deindustrialization" and "a large racial wealth
divide amounting to a difference of 20 times more wealth between the average
white family and the average black family."
Unlike the original resolution calling for a Select Committee on a Green New
Deal - which called for 100 percent renewable energy by 2030 - this one
calls for the U.S. to reach net-zero emissions by 2030. The difference is
more than semantic, and energy wonks have hotly debated it since
Ocasio-Cortez, Sunrise, and other groups began pushing the call for the
latter in November. While full reliance on renewables would have all energy
come from sources such as wind and solar, net-zero entails an openness to
so-called negative emissions technologies, a suite of measures ranging from
the experimental - like carbon capture and storage, machines to extract
carbon from industrial processes and put it underground - to the
conventional, like afforestation, or planting trees that suck up carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere.
The phrasing is also a recognition of the fact that certain "hard-to-abate"
industries, including steel, transportation, and agriculture, are more
difficult to decarbonize than others. Negative emissions are ubiquitous in
pathways to capping warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius created by climate
modelers and compiled in the IPCC's report from last year on reaching that
goal. While many negative emissions technologies remain unproven at scale,
the resolution states that a Green New Deal will pursue negative emissions
"through proven low-tech solutions that increase soil carbon storage, such
as land preservation and afforestation." The resolution further refers
broadly to greenhouse gas emissions, not just carbon.
The sheer scale of investment laid out by the Green New Deal also makes it
possible to imagine eliminating emissions from those hard-to-abate
industries altogether, which the Energy Transitions Commission predicts
would cost just 0.5 percent of global GDP by 2050.
Though carefully worded, net-zero by 2030 is a hugely ambitious target -
although still the only one remotely consistent with something known as
equity pathways pursuant to the amount of carbon the world can continue to
emit under a "carbon budget." That is, the world only has so much carbon
left to burn before we cross a certain threshold of warming. The U.S. is
what's called a historical emitter, meaning that we've both spewed more
greenhouse gasses into the air over time, and as a result have developed
more economic capacity to mitigate and adapt to climate change. In equity
pathways, historical emitters carry a responsibility to peak and drive down
their emissions quicker than the rest of the world, effectively leaving room
in the global carbon budget for countries that haven't collected massive
amounts of wealth off coal, oil, and natural gas room to develop - a process
that, at least for now, means emitting more greenhouse gasses into the
atmosphere. In the U.N. Framework Conventions on Climate Change, this is
known as "common but differentiated responsibility," although historical
emitters - including the U.S. - have consistently tried to contest the
meaning of that phrase.
"Global CO2 emissions need to go down about 10 percent per year to meet a
1.5 degree target," said Peter Erickson, senior scientist at the Stockholm
Environmental Institute. "If you take into account that the U.S. is more
responsible than any other country for historic emissions, and also one of
the wealthiest countries in the world, U.S. emissions need to go down even
faster than that."
The U.S. has a role to play in speeding along the transition off fossil
fuels for the rest of the world.
The resolution also references the fact that the U.S. - because of its vast
resources and contribution to the problem - has a role to play in speeding
along the transition off fossil fuels for the rest of the world. Indeed,
President Donald Trump bragged in his State of the Union address this week
that the United States has become a net-exporter of oil and gas. Fossil fuel
companies are continuing to explore for new reserves - mostly for export -
in places like the Permian and Appalachian basins, which could have a
catastrophic climate impact. Companies being able to exploit those reserves
hinges on their ability to build new infrastructure like Liquid National Gas
terminals that allow for exports and on continuing to receive generous
subsidies. The resolution notes that any Green New Deal in the U.S. will
promote "the international exchange of technology, expertise, products,
funding, and services, with the aim of making the United States the
international leader on climate action, and to help other countries achieve
a Green New Deal."
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