When over 1,000 Greens from all across Europe gathered for their 3rd European Union Congress, meeting in the EU Parliament itself, the mood was electrifying -- a renewable, green kind of electricity.
I want to share the comments I found most illuminating. Quotes may be a bit off, as based on my hand-written notes.
Canaries in the Coal mines:
Pavan Sukhdev is the project leader for the United Nations “Green Economy Initiative” -- a project of UNEP. He is also the Chairman of the Deutsche Bank’s Global Markets Centre in Mumbai.
“What I see are really three or four competing crises – the food crisis, the economic crisis, the fuel crisis, the climate crisis…. And really all of these are canaries in the coal mine. Our response has been to provide blood transfusions to the individual canaries. One after the other. Instead of the right solution. We need to move the canaries out of the coal mine and into the sunlight.”
The Green New Deal:
The Green New Deal was the unifying theme from the Congress.
Sukhdev listed the 5 reasons why we need a “Green New Deal:”
- Fiscal Stimulus: how sustainable is the growth that follows? It must be green to be sustainable for the economy or the environment.
- Green investment beats a Shopping Spree. Green investment creates more jobs than other more traditional “old economy” spending.
- Win-Win-Win solutions exist: Decent Jobs, Lower risks, Higher returns.
- Globalization means that success lies in coordination that helps everyone; not “beggar thy neighbour” strategies.
- What could the Climate and Economic risks and costs be of a further $3 trillion spent to revive the Brown Economy?
The Original New Deal: Why FDR was right.
Claude Turmes is a Green Member of the European Parliament, and Vice president of the Greens, European Free Alliance. He gave a presentation contrasting the response to the 1929 Depression in the USA versus Europe. This is what he said. I had never thought about how FDR’s New Deal was a bulwark against fascism.
Roosevelt’s New Deal:
- Regulation of Financial Institutions
- Fair Distribution of Wealth
- Upgraded the Role of Trade Unions
- Employment Programmes, especially for Young People
- Large investments in Public Infrastructure.
With these programmes and the “New Deal,” the US “won the crisis. In the 1930s under FDR, the wealthiest people in the US, paid 80% income tax. In Europe, the programmes did not create employment, did not engage and strengthen unions and the social sectors of society. Europe “lost the crisis” and fascism was the result.
The Green New Deal must:
- Regulate (Financial Markets and WTO)
- Fair taxation policies
- Employment Programmes – for young people with labour re-training and conversion programmes
- Strengthen the Social Fabric (unions, NGOs and other civil society entities)
- Green Investment Programme in public infrastructure.
Slogans:
EU Young Greens: “Green is the Colour of Hope.”
Irish Greens Campaign: “The World is what you make it.”
EU Greens Campaign Slogan for a shared 27 country-party wide campaign for the EU Parliament: “Think Big. Vote Green.”