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Challenges and Preemption

We firmly believe that the Green New Deal (GND) is a powerful and transformative platform for governments to reinvigorate critical public services and prepare our communities for a changed climate. But it is vital that we address legitimate criticisms and concerns leveled at the “Green New Deal” title, as well as the embedded contradictions in some GND policies. In this section, we have highlighted meaningful, good-faith critiques to help inform our work toward greater justice and policy efficacy.

We firmly believe that the Green New Deal (GND) is a powerful and transformative platform for governments to reinvigorate critical public services and prepare our communities for a changed climate. But it is vital that we address legitimate criticisms and concerns leveled at the “Green New Deal” title, as well as the embedded contradictions in some GND policies. In this section, we have highlighted meaningful, good-faith critiques to help inform our work toward greater justice and policy efficacy.

One Cheer—More or Less—For the Green New Deal

This article presents a critique of the federal Green New Deal proposal by highlighting two structural problems: 1) a large focus on the decarbonization of power rather than changing our energy patterns and 2) being a capitalist agenda. Carson argues that the technocratic, growth-driven vision of the Green New Deal proposal does not address the root causes of systemic injustice. This critique assesses the viability of a Green New Deal and its promise of green economic expansion.

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Land Reform and the Green New Deal

Dissent Magazine

This article discusses land reform in terms of a GND Few Green and argues for New Deal proposals to include explicit attention to rural people and places to challenge the ascendance of right-wing populism.

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NDN Collective

NDN Collective

The Collective builds the collective power of Indigenous Peoples, communities, and Nations to exercise their inherent right to self-determination, while fostering a world that is built on a foundation of justice and equity for all people and the planet.

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Comparing Emerging Transformational Climate Policies at Multiple Scales

Science Direct

This report reviews 14 GND-style policy proposals across multiple levels of government, from municipal to multi-national, comparing their structure, level of detail, and goals. It finds that GND frameworks are emerging as a new, multi-faceted policy approach to confront the complex, multiple drivers of climate change with greater scope than traditional market-based and behavior-based strategies.

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Between The Devil And The Green New Deal

COMMUNE MAGAZINE

In Between the Devil and the Green New Deal Jasper Bernes focuses on an anti-capitalist perspective and asks: Can a Green New Deal work under capitalism? Can it smooth the transition away from capitalism? This article provides a sobering picture of the difficulty or even impossibility of a fully just transition without massive political mobilization and a break away from our current institutions and lifestyles.

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Why a 'Green New Deal' Must be Decolonial

AL JAZEERA

In his illuminating essay on the connections between colonialism and the ecological crisis, Vijay Kolinjivadi explains Why a 'Green New Deal' must be decolonial and provides three organizing principles for a decolonial Green New Deal: rethinking our relationship to nature and each other, reorienting the economy towards degrowth, decolonization, and delocalization, and eliminating the power imbalances in the Western development model.

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'Deal or no deal?’ Exploring the limits and potential of Green New Deals

COMMON WEALTH

This report explores GNDs and recommends that GNDs include: provisions forreparative justice, targeting of racial capitalism, policies and practices that move beyond imperial and colonial underpinnings, be globally and democratically oriented.

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A Green New Deal Beyond Growth

Degrowth Info

In Part I, and Part II, of "A Green New Deal Beyond Growth", Riccardo Mastini criticizes the Green New Deal from the perspective of the degrowth movement, which focuses on critiquing the capitalist system for pursuing growth at all cost as a source of ecological destruction. Mastini critiques current conceptions of the Green New Deal as being too tied to economic growth and promotes the decommodification of basic necessities as a means to dismantle the idea that growth is necessary to the wellbeing of workers. Mastini is a member of Green New Deal for Europe and Research and Degrowth, an academic collective.

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The Red Deal

RED NATION

The Red Deal created by the Red Nation is a movement-oriented document for climate justice and grassroots reform and revolution. It calls the Green New Deal a step in the right direction, but defines the Red Deal as a call for action beyond the scope of the U.S. colonial state, which the Green New Deal does not attempt to be. The Red Deal is a program for Indigenous liberation, life, and land that is committed to overthrowing colonialism and capitalism.

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A 'Green New Deal' Needs to be Global, Not Local

OPEN DEMOCRACY

In A Green New Deal needs to be global, not local, Andrew Taylor and Harpreet Kaur Paul reject the focus of Green New Deals on domestic and local green jobs and call for international worker solidarity and reparations from developed countries to those who are most impacted by climate change.

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The Problems of Eco-capitalism

UNDOD

Calvin Jones, professor at Cardiff University, critiques the Green New Deal in The problems of eco-capitalism. He analyzes three possible barriers to the platform: the possibility of implementation under capitalism, the exclusion of personal consumption from the scope of debate, and its reliance on economic growth. He encourages a local economic approach to addressing the issue.

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Why the Green New Deal Has Failed — So Far

JACOBIN

In this article, Matthew Hume explains, Why the Green New Deal Has Failed So Far. He claims the Green New Deal is set back by a Joe Biden presidency and there has been a failure in getting Green New Deal discussions and language out of the professional-class activist sphere. He warns that many activists around the Green New Deal have attempted to take shortcuts, and that the attempt to take on climate change without the organization of working class people will fail.

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