Max Ajl: Green Transition or People’s Green New Deal?

Conventional discussions of green transition essentially rest on technical and mild institutional transformation – an introjection of technology in order to transform a CO₂ intensive social system. Accordingly, although it is a commonplace to call for “sustainable development,” these proposals accord a prominent role to corporations, elide South-North power dynamics, avoid distributional issues, suppress discussion of class, and accept the role of capitalism in the green transition. This presentation critiques some of the prevailing “Green Transition” proposals, and highlights North-South and class-centered problematics linked to any such green transition, focusing on the energy sector and associated extractive activities, the agricultural sector, and climate debt. In so doing it sketches out central elements for a different green transition that offers a plausible path for world-wide developmental convergence based on widespread and guaranteed access to fundamental social needs.

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