The World is in Crisis. We Need a Global Green New Deal

• Published in: Foreign Policy in Focus p. 1
• Main Author: Galant, Michael
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Inter-Hemispheric Resource Center Press 01.07.2020
• Subjects: Climate change; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Crises; Economic depression; Global economy; Inequality; Pandemics; Poverty; Public goods; Tax havens; Thatcher, Margaret H; Wages & salaries
• ISSN: 1524-1939

The global economy is collapsing. When the pandemic began, experts at the International Monetary Fund predicted that we would see the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. This week, they announced that it will be even worse than they thought.This disaster comes into a world already facing record inequality, desperate poverty, and a growing climate crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed a precarious world economy over the edge. This moment offers a rare opportunity to rethink the path that led us here and chart a new course out: a Global Green New Deal.We have a tendency to treat the global economy as something natural - beyond our control. We understand that poverty, epidemics, and environmental destruction within the United States are not inevitable. There are certain rules in place that benefit some over others. People are not poor because they fail to liftthemselves up by their bootstraps. People are poor because wages are too low, because we don't invest in public goods, because the wealthy are too powerful.