What a green economy is and how will it work for laborers?
What is a green economy, and how will it benefit laborers? This is a question those of us who work in labor justice and climate justice get on a regular basis. How can we ensure that those who have jobs that are dependent on the fossil fuel industry will be able to transition to a green economy? How can we ensure that policies to mitigate climate change and protect the planet empower our most marginalized communities?
The United Nations Environment Program defines a green economy as “low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive. In a green economy, growth in employment and income is driven by public and private investment into such economic activities, infrastructure, and assets that allow reduced carbon emissions and pollution, enhanced energy and resource efficiency, and prevention of the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.”
A green economy allows us to focus on what the Climate Justice Alliance defines as a “Just Transition: a vision-led, unifying, and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy. This means approaching production and consumption cycles holistically and waste-free.” Through this process, we will be able to empower workers with union representation, ensuring that they have good pay, safe working conditions, and opportunities for education and advancement in their profession. The transition itself must be just and equitable, redressing past harms and creating new relationships of power for the future through reparations. If the process of transition is not just, the outcome will never be.
By combining the facets of a green economy with a Just Transition, we can create programs that work with those currently employed by fossil fuel companies to train them in jobs building out clean, renewable energies. These training programs will be held through apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs that will lead to safe, reliable union jobs. Our workers are the backbone of this country, and without investing in their long-term livelihoods, we will not be able to properly transition to a green economy.
Finally, a Just Transition to a green economy means putting more resources into a low-carbon, people-centered care economy that provides for the public good. Our private and public sector agencies that have protected consumers, workers, and communities from corporate malpractices, environmental pollution, and public health crises, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, have continually been stripped of their regulatory powers through corporate-lobbied budget cuts. Investing in a care economy means directly supporting the care work that is disproportionately done by women and people of color -- healthcare workers, teachers, and our civil service workers at all levels of government. Not only have workers of color and women faced staffing shortages, high turnover, and low wages, but our students, our infirm, and our elderly have suffered from worsening quality of care. A green economy opens up new opportunities for innovative, practical solutions by investing more resources in these sectors.
