The Global Green New Deal Declaration

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The Global Green New Deal was launched last night at an event I attended (virtually, of course). This is the Declaration that underpins that Green New Deal. Caroline Lucas and Clive Lewis signed this from the UK parliament:

THE DECLARATION FOR A GREEN NEW DEAL

We believe the wellbeing of people and the planet must be placed at the heart of the political agenda.

Plans for economic, social, racial, and environmental justice will be different in each country, but our shared experience of advancing a transformative agenda will inform and inspire all of us.


A Green New Deal consists of two main strands:

  • Firstly, it involves the redesign of national and international financial systems so that they serve the needs of people and planet, and major changes to taxation;

  • Secondly, significant investment in energy conservation and renewable energies coupled with policies that reduce resource use in the global north. This means  transforming the way we travel, the way we grow food, manage land, value the people who care for us and the way we work. These ambitious programmes must be designed to reduce the use of fossil fuels and restore nature at the scale and speed that science tells us is necessary. They need to address inequality within and between nations by focussing resources on the communities and places around the world where they are needed most.

As elected representatives, we commit to working towards a Green New Deal that:


1 BUILDS AN ECONOMY THAT DELIVERS WELLBEING FOR ALL OF US:

  • The dominant economic system in the vast majority of the world is designed to pursue economic growth at any cost. We need new measures of progress that reflect the health and wellbeing of the real economy and ecosystems, account for long-term risks, and prioritise people and the planet over profits.

  • We will redesign economies so that never again can so much be hoarded by so few, because every human being has the right to universal health care, free education (from early childhood to higher education), a life free of systemic racism, sexism, and xenophobia, and everyone has the right to a living wage, healthy working hours and the ability to organise collectively.

  • With the right regulatory frameworks, monetary tools, and fiscal mechanisms, we will channel the investment needed to transform our homes and buildings, industry, energy, manufacturing, land, agriculture, and the systems of care that support us all to meet the challenges of the crises in climate and nature.

  • We will work together to regulate illicit financial flows, stop capital flight, end tax havens, and ensure that the world's biggest corporations and wealthiest people pay their fair share of tax.

  • We will dismantle the systems of predatory finance that are responsible for keeping governments on a debt-treadmill, undermining public services and contributing to social and environmental destruction.

 


2 PROTECTS AND ENHANCES THE EARTH WE SHARE 

  • Every human being has the right to clean air, water, healthy soil and farming methods that produce healthy and affordable food. Together, we can ensure that the Earth's resources belong to all of us and are protected in our lifetime and for generations to come.

  • Many of the world's poorest people, communities, and countries are suffering disproportionately from the consequences of the climate and nature crises–despite being least responsible for causing them. Historically and today, the poorest communities have had their resources exploited and have been the most exposed to environmental destruction. We will address these inequalities and the practices that underpin them.

  • We commit to action that will limit global temperature rises to below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrialised levels while reversing long standing inequalities within and between nations. We will work to limit the impact of the changes that can no longer be averted, including increased wildfires, heatwaves, extreme rainfall, and tornadoes. We will not be able to prevent all disasters, so will work to develop public capacity to act rapidly and protect the most vulnerable populations.


3 CREATES A CARING LOW-CARBON SOCIETY 

  • We will work to expand the care economy, creating millions of socially necessary, low-carbon jobs in care, health and education, employing a new generation of youth leaders and community organisers. A job guarantee will make sure that everyone who wants to has the choice to work for their community and the planet.

  • We will provide a wide range of training options, guaranteed wages and benefits, equitable access to the millions of jobs created in the transition and involvement in the process of change to all, particularly those people and communities whose livelihoods are dependent on today's high carbon industries.

  • We will build a new green industrial and agricultural policy powered by clean energy –with publicly-owned technologies freely available to countries around the world, particularly in the global south.

  • We will strengthen the labour movement, championing co-operatives, employee ownership and profit sharing, working to advance worker power and representation.


4 SHAPES A FAIR MULTILATERAL SYSTEM FIT FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

  • We will work to ensure that the world's governments and the Bretton Woods institutions (International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) provide immediate debt cancelation for the world's poorest countries and deploy what are known as Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and other innovative financial instruments to help nations recover from the economic fallout of COVID-19.

  • We will work to reform the governance of the Bretton Woods institutions to ensure that they are democratically governed; include transparent, fair and balanced dispute resolution mechanisms; and foster international cooperation and human dignity. In the short term, we will work to ensure that they provide the poorest countries with the financing they need for a sustainable recovery.

  • We will work to end unsustainable debt payments that prevent countries from using the fiscal space they need to recover from the pandemic and to build the transition.

  • We will work to advance climate reparations, using international resources to address inequalities caused or exacerbated by the climate crisis.

  • We will work to renegotiate and roll back global and bilateral trade agreements that have exploited workers and ecosystems, instead advancing a true multilateralism fit for the twenty-first century.


5 SECURES ENVIRONMENTAL AND RACIAL JUSTICE, SHAPING A TRULY DEMOCRATIC FUTURE IN WHICH EVERYONE HAS A ROLE TO PLAY

  • We will look after people who have been forced to leave their homes as a result of hostile economic conditions, armed conflict or environmental conditions, including asylum-seekers, refugees and climate refugees.

  • We will pursue coordinated immigration policies that honor the dignity of all people, fostering global cooperation by addressing the root causes of migration; protecting migrants, particularly the most vulnerable migrant populations, ensuring their human rights are respected; and providing the resources they need to settle.

  • We will build more democratic, inclusive and pluralistic societies, and are committed to working together to find economic, social and environmental solutions to meet the needs of diverse communities, respecting land rights, human rights and the right to resources and services.

  • By democratising policymaking, encouraging citizen participation, and regulating political campaign finance, we will ensure our political systems respond to the needs of the many, rather than catering to the greed of a few.


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