Nine Key Questions About the Green New Deal

If you’ve heard a lot recently about the Green New Deal but still aren’t quite sure what it is, you are not alone. After all, it has been trumpeted by its supporters as the way to avoid planetary destruction, and vilified by opponents as a socialist plot to take away your ice cream. So it’s bound to be somewhat confusing. We’re here to help.

What is the Green New Deal?

The Green New Deal is a congressional resolution that lays out a grand plan for tackling climate change. 

Introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, the proposal calls on the federal government to wean the United States from fossil fuels and curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions across the economy. It also aims to guarantee new high-paying jobs in clean energy industries.

The resolution is nonbinding, so even if Congress approves it, nothing in the proposal would become law.

Variations of the proposal have been around for years. Think tanks, the Green Party and even the New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman all have had plans for tackling climate change that they labeled a Green New Deal. But after the 2018 midterm elections, a youth activist group called the Sunrise Movement popularized the name by laying out a strategy and holding a sit-in outside the office of Nancy Pelosi, the soon-to-be-speaker of the House of Representatives, to demand action on climate change. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez joined the protesters, lending her support to their proposal and setting the groundwork for what ultimately became the joint resolution.

Will there be a vote on it?

Yes.

Republicans have cast the Green New Deal as a socialist takeover and say it is evidence that Democrats are far from the mainstream on energy issues. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, plans to bring the plan to the floor as early as next week. Democrats say that the vote would be a stunt because Republican Senate leaders do not want to have a sincere debate about climate change.

What problem is the Green New Deal addressing?

The goal of the Green New Deal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change while also trying to fix societal problems like economic inequality and racial injustice.

The resolution uses as its guide two major reports issued last year by the United Nations and by federal scientists who warned that if global temperatures continue to rise, the world is headed for more intense heat waves, wildfires and droughts. The research shows that the United States economy could lose billions of dollars by the end of the century because of climate change. Currently, carbon emissions are rising, by 3.4 percent last year in the United States and by 2.7 percent globally, according to early estimates.

To continue reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/climate/green-new-deal-questions-answers.html