An Inclusive Green Economy

Van Jones and Jason Walsh, Green For All

By framing solutions to climate change as mechanisms for creating new jobs, opportunities, wealth, and health in low-income neighborhoods, we can win millions of members of this key constituency to the struggle for a sane climate policy. We can—indeed, we have no choice but to—fight poverty, pollution, and global warming at the same time.

Green Ideas

  • Use public policy to catalyze the creation of millions of green-collar jobs—well-paid, career track jobs that preserve and enhance environmental quality
  • Place an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions and sell permits to polluters
  • Invest cap-and-trade revenues in research and development, technology deployment, transition assistance to workers and consumers, and economic and workforce development strategies
  • Establish a national Clean Energy Corps, a service, training, and job creation program concentrated in low-income communities
  • Create public-private financing mechanisms to upgrade buildings’ energy efficiency

 

Excerpted from Thinking Big: Progressive Ideas for a New Era, our shared agenda for Congress and the Administration.

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