Gallagher Publishes OpEd on a Global Green New Deal
Kevin Gallagher, Director of the Global Development Policy (GDP) Center and Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, co-wrote a recent Op-Ed on the process of working toward a “Global Green New Deal.”
Gallagher’s Op-Ed, entitled “Toward a Global Green New Deal,” was published in Project Syndicate on April 9, 2019. Gallagher co-wrote the Op-Ed with Richard Kozul-Wright, Director of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
From the text of the Op-Ed:
The “Green New Deal” (GND) proposed by progressives in the United States cannot be achieved in isolation. To tackle climate change and inequality together, all countries will need to agree to new rules for international cooperation.
The start of such a rethinking began a decade ago. In April 2009, the G20 met in London and promised to deliver a coordinated response to the global financial crisis, followed by a future of more robust growth. Then, in December of that year, world leaders meeting in Copenhagen under the auspices of the United Nations promised big cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, to limit global warming to 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The first conference ended with British Prime MinisterGordon Brown announcinga “new world order” founded on “a new progressive era of international cooperation”; the secondended in disarray. Yet, looking back, the false dawn of that “new progressive era” has proved to be the bigger obstacle to a secure and stable future.
For a decade now, the post-crisis recovery has oscillated between anemic growth spurts and recurrent bouts of financial instability, owing partly to advanced economies’ discordant mix of aggressively loose monetary policies and dogged fiscal austerity. And this has all been supported by massive build-up of debt, which has increased by more than$70 trillionworldwide since the crisis.
Gallagher serves on the United Nations’ Committee for Development Policy and co-chairs the T-20 Task Force on International Financial Architecture at the G-20. He previously served on the investment sub-committee of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy at the US Department of State and on the National Advisory Committee at the Environmental Protection Agency. Gallagher has been a visiting or adjunct professor at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico; Tsinghua University in China, and the Center for State and Society in Argentina. @KevinPGallagher