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Abstract
This paper advances a broad program to move the global economy onto a viable climate stabilization path—a trajectory that is consistent with the CO2 emissions reduction targets established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The overarching project is straightforward: to achieve the IPCC emissions reduction targets, and to accomplish this in a way that also expands decent job opportunities and raises mass living standards for working people and the poor throughout the world. This overarching aim is captured within the idea of a Global Green New Deal. As I use the term, the Global Green New Deal, includes four major features: phasing out global fossil fuel consumption by 2050; clean energy investments, averaging about 2.5 percent of global GDP per year, including both public and private investments; just transition support for workers and communities that are currently dependent on the fossil fuel industry; and phasing out deforestation and industrial agriculture, to be replaced with afforestation and sustainable agricultural practices. This paper focuses on the first three issues, related to the operations of the global energy system. The main topics covered are: Fossil Fuel Phase-out; Clean Energy Investment Program; Job Creation, Job Losses and Just Transition; Providing Cheap and Accessible Financing; and Ensuring Global Fairness.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 One recent study providing details of the issues at stake is Lenton et al. (Citation2023). They find that allowing the global mean temperature to rise by 2.7 °C between 2080 – 2100 could leave one-third of the global population exposed to “unprecedented heat.” Reducing global warming from 2.7 to 1.5 °C would result in a five-fold decrease in the population exposed to unprecedented heat.
4 Chomsky and Pollin (Citation2020).
5 I discuss climate adaptation in Chomsky and Pollin (Citation2020, 96–100) and cite some important recent literature on the issue. But the need for further research, and especially robust policy initiatives, on adaptation is growing rapidly, as the impacts of climate change are becoming more severe more rapidly than most analysts had been projecting.
6 For various perspectives on the Green New Deal, degrowth and ecosocialism, see, e.g. Mastini, Kallis, and Hickel (Citation2021), Adj (Citation2021) and Huber (Citation2022). See also a 2019 debate between Schor and Jorgenson Citation2019b) and myself (Pollin Citation2019b) and a 2022 Boston Review forum featuring an essay by Soper (Citation2022) with responses by Ghosh (Citation2022) and myself (Pollin et al. Citation2022a). My own more detailed perspectives on degrowth and ecosocialism are in Pollin (Citation2018) and Chomsky and Pollin (Citation2020). Meaney (Citation2022) presents an excellent survey of alternative perspectives on these issues.
10 An excellent reference on the overall set of issues in this section is Jacobson (Citation2023).
11 Pollin (Citation2020) presents the full derivation as to how I generated these estimates. It is notable that the 2021 study by IRENA, World Energy Transitions Outlook reached almost the identical figure for average annual spending to reach a 1.5 °C stabilization point by 2050: they estimate an average of $4.4 trillion per year as opposed to my own average figure of $4.5 trillion per year (100). The IEA’s cost estimate for their Net Zero scenario is also close to my figure, at an average of $5.1 trillion per year through 2050 (IEA 2021a).
13 https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/cost-saving-electricity-through; https://www.aceee.org/blog/2018/12/renewables-are-getting-cheaper-energy; https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/cost-saving-electricity-multi-program
14 These figures refer to the most recent data on total energy consumption in these respective economies relative to their GDP. That is, their energy intensity ratios—(aggregate energy consumption/GDP). Figures on aggregate energy consumption are from: https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world. GDP figures are from: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator
15 See Alvarez et al. (Citation2012), Romm (Citation2014), Howarth (Citation2015), and J. Peischl et al. (Citation2016).
16 See Pollin (Citation2022b).
18 See Valero et al. (Citation2018).
19 This development is documented in van Exter et al. (Citation2018).
20 See, e.g. the classic work by Girvan (Citation1976) as well as Tanzer (Citation1981).
21 See, e.g. Shaxson (Citation2007).
22 See the detailed discussion in Pollin et al. (Citation2023).
23 These findings are summarized in Pollin (Citation2015).
24 See Pollin et al. (Citation2022).
25 See Pollin (Citation2016).
26 The findings in this section are summarized in Pollin (Citation2023).
30 This approach is developed in Pollin (Citation2020) and summarized in Chomsky and Pollin (Citation2020).
31 Azad and Chakraborty (Citation2019) develop a more complex rebate structure, that rewards residents of countries according to the emissions levels of each country.
33 See Pollin and Epstein (Citation2021).