Overview of the Green New Deal

Since the Green New Deal (GND) was introduced on February 7th by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the grand proposal has remained a subject of heated debate within Washington and garnered visceral reactions from all circles, ranging from effusive praise to outright hostility. The GND resolution is non-binding and thus cannot be made into law or create new programs, although this has not rendered it immune from controversy.

The main environmental objective of the GND is to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within a ten-year period. While the goal is aggressive by any standard, it is actually a moderated version of previous proposals, which reportedly called for completely eliminating "the emissions from the transportation, agriculture and industrial sectors." The primary driver and justification for the net-zero emissions target is the findings of the "Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C" by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which concluded that anthropomorphic GHG emissions will result in sea level rise, increased frequency of extreme weather phenomena and other natural disasters, and unprecedented levels of economic damage worldwide. The resolution directly cited the major results of the IPCC study, which stated that preventing the most severe effects of climate change would necessitate "global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from human sources of 40 to 60 percent from 2010 levels by 2030" and "net-zero global emissions by 2050."