A global green new deal to save the world economy

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2018 report concluded that we only have twelve years left to avoid the environmental catastrophe cutting emission of global warming gases 45% from 2010 levels.

Facing this global climate emergency, a younger generation is spearheading an unprecedented planetary mobilization in support to save life on Earth and setting the agenda for a bold political movement with the potential to revolutionize society. This is the new agenda for a Green New Deal.

Major Party leaders and mayors in US and Ursula von der Leyen, President-elect of the European Commission in the EU, have made the Green New Deal the centerpiece of their economic strategy to transition towards a zero-emission post-carbon society.

But also key players of the economy – ICT; power and electricity; transportation and logistics; and real estate – are swinging towards a Green New Deal and fast decoupling from fossil fuels in favor of ever cheaper solar and wind energies and the accompanying clean technologies, green business practices, and processes of circularity and resilience that are the central features of an ecological society.

The levelized costs of utility-scale solar and wind installations have plummeted and are now below the cost of nuclear power, oil, coal, and natural gas, leaving the old conventional energies and accompanying technologies behind. New studies are sounding the alarm that trillions of dollars in stranded fossil fuel assets could create a carbon bubble likely to burst by 2028, causing the collapse of the fossil fuel civilization.

“Stranded assets” are all the fossil fuels that will remain in the ground because of falling demand as well as the abandonment of pipelines, ocean platforms, storage facilities, energy generation plants, backup power plants, petrochemical processing facilities, gasoline stations, auto service centers, and the myriad industries tightly coupled to the fossil fuel culture.

Fossil fuel dependent countries like Italy will be caught in the crosshairs between the plummeting price of solar and wind and the fallout from peak oil demand and accumulating stranded assets in the oil industry. The marketplace is speaking, and governments everywhere will need to quickly adapt if they are to survive and prosper.

About the Author

Angelo Consoli