Green New Deal can start in our communities
Municipalities are very well placed to take early and meaningful action, write Maude Barlow and Dylan Penner.
The power of a Green New Deal as an approach to the climate crisis is its potential to shift the political consensus on what’s possible so that climate science and Indigenous knowledge become the basis for action.
The Green New Deal is capturing people’s imaginations and reframing the climate debate in a way that builds a groundswell of support for a major social and economic shift.
A Green New Deal for all will ensure that transformation is carried out equitably, that it’s rooted in climate justice, that it respects the rights of Indigenous peoples, and that it creates over a million jobs in the process.
To build the necessary political pressure for federal parties and the federal government to implement a Green New Deal, we need to build as much momentum as we can everywhere we can. And federal parties are starting to respond to the groundswell of support for a Green New Deal with more ambitious climate plans.
But what if we didn’t need to wait to win a Green New Deal until after the federal election? What if we could start building it, right here, right now, from the ground up?
The Council of Canadians is launching a campaign to win local Green New Deals in communities from coast to coast to coast. Making your community a Green New Deal Community is a way of both advancing a Green New Deal locally, while also applying upward pressure to ultimately win a federal Green New Deal.
Municipal governments oversee the development and maintenance of the majority of local infrastructure and public services. According to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, local governments “currently have direct or indirect control over approximately 44 per cent of GHG emissions in Canada.” Municipalities can also play a key role in rejecting new fossil-fuel infrastructure in their jurisdictions.
Every community that adopts a plan and passes a resolution supporting a local Green New Deal tips the scales toward provincial, territorial, and federal governments doing the same.
We’ve launched an organizing guide to help local organizers with Green New Deals in their communities.
In addition to the need for grassroots pressure on other levels of government, adopting a Green New Deal locally is an important way for each community to define its unique needs and priorities in the transition ahead.
Becoming a Green New Deal Community is also the next natural step for communities that have declared a climate emergency, which hundreds of municipalities in Canada and around the world have now done.
Now that the recognition of the urgency of the climate crisis is widespread, it’s time to take the next step. New York City did just that in April by adopting a municipal Green New Deal resolution. Municipalities in Canada can and should do so too.
Whether we have a safe climate future is fundamentally a question of democracy. People are demanding it, but elected officials haven’t yet caught up with the urgency of the crisis.
As Bolivian water warrior Oscar Olivera used to say, democracy is who decides. What the future of our climate will be is also a fundamental question of who decides. Will corporations decide our climate future? Or will it be people and communities?
So let’s say this loudly and clearly. We decide our future with a Green New Deal. And we can start to weave a Green New Deal together by winning municipal resolutions in our communities.
Because a Green New Deal is already here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.