We Have To Make Sure The “Green New Deal” Doesn’t Become Green Capitalism

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A conversation with Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson.

Incoming Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made waves in late November when she called for a Green New Deal (GND)—a plan to “transition” the U.S. economy to “become carbon neutral” over the course of 10 years. In a draft resolution, she proposes the formation of a Select Committee to develop a plan for massive public works programs, powered by a jobs guarantee and public banks, with the goal of “meeting 100 percent of national power demand through renewable sources.” According to Ocasio-Cortez, the plan aims to eliminate poverty, bring down greenhouse gas emissions, and “ensure a ‘just transition’ for all workers, low-income communities, communities of color, indigenous communities, rural and urban communities and the front-line communities.”


Yet, some climate justice organizations are responding with more cautious support. The Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), a network of front-line environmental justice organizations, including the Southwest Workers Union and Black Mesa Water Coalition, praised the GND as “a much-needed aggressive national pivot away from climate denialism to climate action.” But CJA said in a statement released earlier this week that “the proposal for the GND was made public at the grasstops [as opposed to grassroots] level. When we consulted with many of our own communities, they were neither aware of, nor had they been consulted about the launch of the GND.”

While the GND is in its developmental phase, the Climate Justice Alliance says it is critical for social movement groups to fight for the best possible version of the deal—and ensure that it does not include false solutions such as “carbon markets, offsets and emissions trading regimes or geoengineering technologies.” CJA says any jobs plan should restore and protect workers’ rights to organize and form unions, and it should be predicated on non-extractive policies that build “local community wealth that is democratically governed.” Any deal must ensure “free, prior and informed consent by Indigenous peoples,” CJA insists, and should be directed by those communities bearing the brunt of the “dig, burn, dump” economy.

In These Times spoke with Kali Akuno, director of the CJA-affiliated Cooperation Jackson, a Missisippi-based group that aims to build a “solidarity economy” that is “anchored by a network of cooperatives and worker-owned, democratically self-managed enterprises.” According to Akuno, movements must defend the best components of the GND, while challenging–and offering alternatives to–the capitalist logic embedded in some of its proposals. “While this is still in the drafting phase,” he argues, “let’s get it as near perfect as we possibly can.”







Sarah: What should a left intervention look like?





Sarah: What needs to be improved?



Sarah: U.S. industries have played tremendous and disproportionate role in driving climate change. It seems predatory for those industries to develop “solutions” and then turn around and sell them to the Global South.










Sarah: Can you talk more about the concept of a “just transition”—where it comes from, what it’s calling for?




Right now, as we speak, the COP24 climate talks are happening in Poland, and there are workers there in the coal industry who are trying to appropriate the term “just transition” to say “clean coal” is part of the just transition, which is contrary to the spirit and letter of the concept, especially knowing how that industry is contributing to the crisis we are in.




What do you think of this public banking component?






  • Concerned50

    The difference between the “GREEN NEW DEAL” and the bipartisan “America’s Climate Solution” is the difference between saving 60,000 lives versus saving the world from extinction. The difference between 2 million jobs and mobilizing 300 million Americans saving the world from total destruction. We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN. Urgent changes needed to cut risk of extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty, says IPCC https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

  • mwildfire

    Excellent analysis, with dozens of really good points, but I do have a couple of small quibbles. First, it is not acknowledged that you can’t simultaneously keep it in the ground, stop the exploitation of fossil fuels, and build the renewable alternative–especially if you ALSO insist that former fossil fuel workers must continue “a high standard of living,” AND you want the US to pay reparations to other countries. Later it’s acknowledged that we need to talk about limits, but meanwhile, building a huge number of windmills and solar panels and batteries and insulation–those things take a lot of energy, which has to come from fossil fuels because existing renewable sources are so minuscule. As for the reparations, this likely is possible, but requires something not mentioned here–shrinking the US military to a small fraction of its current size, including closing most or all of its foreign bases. That would: release tremendous resources; end much of the harm that the reparations need to make up for; and reduce US emissions, quite a lot coming from its military. But having the resources to do everything listed here probably requires more: the only way to end poverty is to end wealth. I don’t think that if we seized the excess wealth of anyone with, say, over three million dollars, that it would release the amount of wealth these people possess over that amount, because beyond some point that wealth isn’t real wealth, it’s merely numbers. There is real wealth tied up in palatial homes and yachts, etc., but I don’t know as computerized accounts of stocks and bonds and hidden money accounts can actually be used to build anything or feed anyone.
    The other reality problem here is politics–Octavia-Cortez may be purely sincere and determined but she can’t turn this system around on her own. Even with a lot of the public behind her, most of her colleagues in Congress represent corporations and the rich–she will be outvoted. Nonetheless it;s useful for her to use her position to get conversations about what SHOULD happen going.

  • chetdude

    The most important single component of a Green New Deal that will work is to provide all forms of birth control on demand – no strings or impediments, empower women to use it when they wish and educate the public about how essential it is that we must not only eliminate burning fossil-fuels (and generally power-down) but must lower the population to a level that our finite Planet can sustainably support.

    A primary goal of any change must be to learn to live Sustainability according to the following definition:



    3. Entails determining and staying within the balance point among population, consumption and waste assimilation so that bioregions, watersheds and ecosystems can maintain their ability to recharge, replenish and regenerate.

  • mwildfire

    Makes sense–except that our numbers, and our per capita impact, are both well beyond sustainability now, which makes the details of implementation tricky to say the least.

  • chetdude

    “We” are 4 – 5 billion beyond a sustainable population thanks to burning and eating fossil-fuels…

    It’s entirely possible that with a major paradigm change toward smaller families enabled by global sharing of essential resources and technology, we could use the time of the last of the fossil fuel age morphing into a powered-down “Green Future” to lower the population to a sustainable level within 3 or 4 generations…

    But alas, it’s unlikely…

    So homo sapiens(sic) may be just another evolutionary dead-end…their “brains” became too big and complex and self-contradictory and suicidal so they died.

  • Johnny Prescott

    We could be sustainable with this many people on the planet if we learned to live more simply – and by that I don’t mean living in straw huts. Most people in the West have FAR more than is necessary to live a comfortable life. For instance, people’s garages in their homes are not occupied by cars, but rather by all the extra sh*t they buy and do not use. How many Americans have homes with empty bedrooms, empty dens, empty basements, etc. (maybe not “empty” but rather “unused”)?

    We live in a 600 sq ft. apartment, and only use about 2/3 of the space regularly, and a good chunk of that is because my wife uses a bedroom as her office as she works from home. We realized that in our old home, which was 800 sq. ft, we were using less than 1/2 the space on a regular basis. We basically used the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. I recently spent a year living in a small RV. It was not ideal at times, but ultimately, it was enough, and it makes you utilize public spaces more (good for society!) and makes you also appreciate the little things we normally take for granted. Food for thought.


  • Steve_I_Am

    Thank you Sarah and Kali for this thoughtful, informative, discussion.

    Among the many points made, some of the most important had to do with the need for we, on the left, to make our voices, and our ideas, heard.

    Ocasio-Cortez has taken an idea out of the Green Party playbook (an acknowledgment of that from AOC would be nice, but that is a conversation for another time) and started a national conversation with it. We need to insert ourselves into, and try to guide, that conversation!