A green social contract without the people is anti-social

Like the Covid pandemic, the climate crisis is a threat to everyone. it is a threat to civilization. it clearly requires, policy-wise, a collective whole-of-society approach. All sectors of society, particularly the working people, should and must be involved.

In this context, the position taken by US Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-cortez and the authors of the book A Planet to Win (Aronoff et al., 2019) is the right governance approach. Their vision of a “Green New Deal” (GND) requires the mobilization of entire society. And the task of “greening” the economy is linked to the performance of two other major societal tasks: putting the economy on the path of sustainability while addressing social and economic inequality. In short, it is a social contract undertaken by the whole society for a clear social purpose.

Unfortunately, the GND’S being floated in many countries in Asia and other parts of the world are social contracts only in name. Social and labor clauses are either missing or are written in an abstract or obtuse manner. Above all, there is no participation of the working people in the drafting of these GNDS. The overwhelming preoccupation of government agencies handling the climate and environmental issues is how to tinker or juggle the numbers on the mix of fossil fuels and renewables in order to show how their respective countries are complying with the mitigation targets of the Paris Agreement. But such an exercise, usually ending in a so-called net-zero emission target statement, is not a social contract.

Of course, the concept of a social contract between the governor and the governed is not new. Political scientists and philosophers have long been debating different theories on the social contract, from the divine right of kings to govern to the more enlightened concept that men and women, constituting a community or society, allow themselves to be under the rules of a government which guarantees justice, security and social protection to all citizens.

The “new deal” of US President Franklin Roosevelt belongs to the latter category. Based on his promise of a “new deal ” to a desperate and jobless America, Roosevelt launched a massive government stimulus program —unheard of in the free-trade era of the early 20th century—to create millions of jobs during the Great Depression of 1929-1933 (Kelly, 2020). Most of the jobs created turned out to be environmental in character, such as the hiring of men to plant trees, build f lood barriers, fight forest fires, maintain roads and trails, and manage the National Parks. A Tennessee Valley Authority was established to build dams, stop flooding and generate affordable electricity for rural America. The social and labor aspects of the new deal included the passage of laws supportive of workers’ bargaining rights, enrolment in social security and financing of houses for the American working masses. Roosevelt’s “new deal” was in a sense the original “green new deal” or “green social contract.”

Now fast forward to 2009, the year the global financial crisis broke out and clobbered stock markets around the world and pushed the global economy on the brink. The UN Environmental Programme used the GFC as an opportunity to ask the world leaders to address the GFC challenge by embracing a “Global Green New Deal,” which is similar in intent to Roosevelt’s new deal. The GGND appeal was specifically directed to the G-20 countries, which according to UNEP “produce 90 percent of the global GDP, 80 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions and command much of the world ’s annual $150-250 billion fossil fuel subsidies.” The UNEP GGND advisory is win-win: revive the global economy and boost employment “while accelerating the fight against climate change, environmental degradation and poverty” (UNEP, 2009a).

According to UNEP, the GGND (UNEP, 2009b) can achieve the following:

Creation of millions of “green jobs” in the expanding renewable energy sector, bolstered by the finding that investments in renewables create two or three times more jobs compared to the conventional energy development;

Enhancement of the energy security of countries as they become less dependent on the production and importation of fossil fuels, which are the primary cause of emissions and geo-political and geo-economic conflicts;

Reduction of climate risks, for inaction leads to higher costs;

Development of a green pathway for the realization of productive and sustained cooperation among government, private sector and other social actors; and

Green-house gas mitigation. The UNEP concluded that the GGND means many winners. The GGND lays “the foundation for a new, self-sustaining cycle of green growth globally, while steering the world on a course to end the scourge of energy poverty and avoid the threat of dangerous climate instability” (UNEP, 2009b).

The overall framework of the GGND is that de-carbonization should go hand in hand with economic development. But why are governments, especially those from the advanced countries, hesitant to make commitments to the GGND?

As it is, 12 years after the GGND proposal of UNEP, the world is still struggling to find ways to stop the catastrophic future arising from the runaway warming of Planet Earth. Instead of taking the GGND seriously by realigning their national budgets and stimulus spending based on the GGND framework, most countries, with the exception of a few, simply went ahead with old-style budgeting unmindful of the urgent task of budgeting to combat the climate crisis. The phasing out of fossil-dependent power plants such as those running on coal, oil and gas did not happen, as monitored by the climate tracker in Berlin and as ref lected in the continuing accumulation of GHG emissions in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Obviously, the transition to clean energy system has become a slow-byslow process because those involved in the transition include the big investors in the fossil-reliant power sector. They happen to have powerful backers in government. They are naturally hesitant to give up profitable commercial interests on existing power systems despite the emerging fact that renewables are getting cheaper and cheaper.

So how can governments and the big business players in the power sector be nudged or persuaded or even forced to go green? The answer is increase the pressure from below, from the citizenry, from the working people. There are examples given by the Transnational Institute based in Amsterdam (see Reclaiming Public Services, 2017) on how such pressure can help transform private/privatized public utilities to go green. One outstanding case is that of Hamburg, Germany, where a citizens’ movement succeeded in pushing the Hamburg local government to accept their collective demand for the city to go green and shift to renewable-energy generation (e.g., wind and solar).

The point is that it is not enough that a purportedly green social contract has social and labor clauses for the benefit of the people. A social contract is a contract with the people. Therefore, the citizenry should not only be informed and consulted but they should also be involved in the design, planning and implementation of the social contract. People should not be treated as mere objects of development.

It is in this context that the workers’ movements, which represent the working masses, should and must play a major and distinct role. They should help shape the social contract based on the people’s interests and, yes, they should lead in the implementation of the contract. In short, they should own the contract.