Why we need a Global Green New Deal — and how to win it
EDGE Funders Alliance, The Leap and War on Want co-organised the webinar “Why we need a Global Green New Deal — and how to win it” in which we introduced the concept of a Global Green New Deal, the key players advancing different facets of the work, the stakes for COP26 and global movements, and how progressive funders can support this project and embed the framing across their climate efforts.
This webinar is only the beginning of what we hope will be an ongoing opportunity for collaboration and shared learning between progressive systemic change funders and social movements around global initiatives such as the Global Green New Deal.
If you are asking yourself what the GGND work looks like in detail and want to learn more about how you can directly support it please read this important document. Fore more information please contact Natalia Guidorzi at War on Want.
Here is a list of resources around a Global Green New Deal, some of which were mentioned during the webinar, as well as other resources we think you might be interested in.
- A Just(ice) transition is a Post-Extractive Transition, 2019 report from War on Want on the metal and mineral transition.
- Youtube video. Webinar of the GGND launch, May 2020
- Youtube video of the TUC Congress webinar. September 2020 webinar
- The Solution to the Coronavirus Recession Is a Global Green New Deal, article from Alex Lenferna
- A Good Life For All Within Planetary Boundaries, University of Leeds Research Project ; see paper in Nature published here
- How 10 billion people could live well by 2050 – using as much energy as we did 60 years ago; Joel Millward-Hopkins
- Minerals for Climate Action: The Mineral Intensity of the Clean Energy Transition, World Bank, 2020.
- Turning Down the Heat: Can We Mine Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis? 2019 report from Mining Watch
- The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition and Climate Change, The Lancet 2019
- Global Material Resources Outlook to 2060 – Economic drivers and environmental consequences, OECD, 2018
- Green Conflict Minerals, The fuels of conflict in the transition to a low-carbon economy Clare Church and Alec Crawford, IISD, 2018.
Later in the year, EDGE will be offering a space for funders and social movements to engage in the form of issue-based working groups with the purpose of enabling actionable collaboration towards resourcing and organizing the emergence of the new systems we want to see. The Global Initiatives Working Group will be one of them. If you are interested in participating please register here.
WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Celebrating its 20 year anniversary this year, it remains a critical space of convergence for our movements and a container of memory and creativity for action. The WSF is building and preparing a global year of action with over 70 organisations — including a renewal of the WSF in order to democratize its governance and make it more action-oriented, global political subject.
GRASSROOTS TO GLOBAL ASSEMBLIES: Developing new democratic forms to use from the grassroots upwards.
GLOBAL DIALOGUE FOR SYSTEMIC CHANGE: Born online during the first global lockdown, this process is held together by some of our movement’s most refreshing and respected thinkers. It asks how we can transform lots of segmented knowledge on alternatives into simple, tangible visions for transformation, and how it is that those systemic alternatives can help to fill the voids of fragmentation that make our movements and societies so susceptible to competition and separation.
GLOBAL TAPESTRY OF ALTERNATIVES: Tapestry as an interconnection of networks. Main noun is weaving – building on those already connecting those on the ground. With a particular focus on alternatives — these aim to be radical alternatives that attempt to break with the dominant system. The GTA is leading a very interesting dialogue bringing all of these different processes together.
GLOBAL WORKING GROUP BEYOND DEVELOPMENT: Marked by grassroots academic rigour and the legitimacy of years of dialogue between activists and activist-scholars, the Global Working Group Beyond Development has become a durable container for reflection, knowledge production and emancipatory pedagogies — with consistent publications injecting new critical thinking into our movement spaces.
PROGRESSIVE INTERNATIONAL: New initiative to connect the global left, born in 2018 and focused on campaigning and advocacy. War on Want and The Leap are members of the Advisory Council.
ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG: About to publish a great new book on the GGND, with voices from around the world. This will include a chapter from War onWant’s Executive Director Asad Rehman and an afterword from The Leap.
UNCTAD: In a bold move, UNCTAD is basically recommending an undoing of much of the neocolonial structures that are constraining the Global South. They are calling for an “investment push on an unprecedented scale and across the entire global commons.” That would in no lesser terms mean the Global North footing a large share of the bill for much of those investment needs, repaying the vast ecological and colonial debt they owe to the Global South.
THE NEXT SYSTEMS PROJECT: initiative creating bold thinking and proposals to address systemic challenges faced in the United States.
GLOBAL UNIONS: Public Services International, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, Global Nurses United — the labour movement has a long history of working internationally and has helped lead campaigning around trade reform, climate issues and workers’ rights that are all central to a Green New Deal.
CLIMATE STRIKERS: At the forefront of increase the pressure for ambitious climate policy, particularly in certain key countries (ie. Germany).
WAR ON WANT: War on Want has decades of experience supporting grassroots movements, trade unions and workers’ organisations in Latin America, Africa and Asia in their struggle for a just and fair world. Our partners work on issues ranging from food sovereignty and land rights to workers rights, trade and taxation, and proposing alternative visions to extractivism. We have had a distinct voice in the global movement for social justice, from the struggles against colonialism, to supporting liberation movements around the world, and today the fight for climate justice.
THE LEAP: The Leap’s mission is to advance intersectional solutions to the burning crises of climate change, racism and inequality. We develop projects that deepen relationships between climate and other movements, and support them with cultural work like our films Message from the Future that build popular support both for the future our partners are fighting for.
If you are asking yourself what the GGND work looks like in detail and want to learn more about how you can directly support it please read this important document. Fore more information please contact Natalia Guidorzi at War on Want