Robert Pollin is Distinguished University Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He is also the founder and President of PEAR (Pollin Energy and Retrofits), an Amherst, MA-based green energy company operating throughout the United States.
Title: Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet
Abstract: In its landmark studies of 2018 and 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that to stabilize the global mean temperature of 2100 at 1.50C, global net CO2) emissions will have to fall by about 45 percent as of 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050. As I use the term, the core of the Green New Deal is exactly targeted on achieving the IPCC emissions reduction targets, and to accomplish this in a way that also expands decent job opportunities and raises mass living standards for working people and the poor throughout the world. As such, the global Green New Deal presents a robust alternative to neoliberalism, the dominant economic policy framework throughout the world over the past 40 years. My lecture will review four major design features and challenges of a global Green New Deal and the potential outcomes that can result. These are: 1) phasing out global fossil fuel consumption by 2050; 2) creating a clean energy-dominant global energy infrastructure to supplant the existing fossil-fuel dominant infrastructure; 3) job creation that will result in all regions of the globe through clean energy investments; and 4) just transition support for workers and communities that are currently dependent on the fossil fuel industry.
All seminars this semester will be offered via Zoom and in person at ARB 10th Floor Hess Commons. Register for the seminar via this link https://columbiacuimc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYtceusrT8iEtVCTS1s22pQMoOVN31HPjf4
