A new Global Alliance for a Green New Deal brings together 21 politicians from around the world united in the belief that targets, although important, “don’t change things, policy does”.

Launched on July 19, the Global Alliance sees each of the contributing lawmakers already working to advance transformative policies for bold social, economic and ecological renewal, come together to call for a rapid and just transition in response to Covid-19 and the climate and nature crises, and to build a new internationalism based on cooperation and collaboration.

The alliance aims to add momentum to stalled, slow and insufficient international processes, and, by working together, the lawmakers aim to increase global momentum for a Green New Deal that, if enacted, is expected to deliver global justice, solidarity and build a new, spirited internationalism. 

Speaking at a global public meeting, the founding members, while pledging to do all they can to advance a transformative Green New Deal in their own countries, will urge global leaders to not wait for November’s critical COP26 summit, but embark on bold transformative action to make the world fairer and greener now.

They further urge global leaders to work in more globally representative groupings that are better-placed to understand the challenges the world faces, to fight Covid-19 and build back a fairer and greener world; and to respond to the need for global collaboration on vaccines and debt restructuring for the world’s poorest nations with a new internationalism based on cooperation, collaboration and global justice, which should also underpin the global response to the climate and nature crises.

Additionally, the founding members will put a Green New Deal, nationally and globally, at the heart of the Covid recovery.

Founding members include US Congress member Representative Ilhan Omar; Brazilian Congress member Joenia Wapichana; Member of the European Parliament Manon Aubry; UK members of Parliament Clive Lewis and Caroline Lucas; and Costa Rica Congress member Paola Vega Rodriquez.

Alliance members have called on progressive lawmakers from around the world to join them, by committing to a statement of principles known as the Declaration for a Green New Deal wherein each of the lawmakers have pledged to renew efforts for further and deeper action at the national level in their respective countries, while also sharing best practice and advancing further and faster action.

Commenting ahead of the launch, the founding members of the alliance said “climate change is here and it is an existential threat to humanity”, as is evidenced by the “horrifying repercussions of failing to act” such as wildfires raging across the West Coast, extreme hurricanes, heatwaves in Australia and massive flooding around the world.

“Natural disasters like these will only get worse unless we act as a global community to counteract this devastation,” they commented.

However, while a Green New Deal would not only avert the worst of the climate and nature crises the alliance believes it would “make everyday life better” for the vast majority of people wherever they live in the world.

The alliance launches less than four months before world leaders convene at the critical COP26 summit, to be hosted by the UK in Scotland, and a month after the June Group of Seven summit, which alliance members say failed to deliver what is needed for the world’s poorest people and countries and for the climate.

The latest report in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment cycle, due in early August, is expected to reveal that the world is perilously close to exceeding 1.5 °C of temperature rise.

Alliance members say plans currently explored in global fora are not nearly ambitious enough to meet the moment, and that they will work together to raise ambition about what is possible and demonstrate a new way of doing politics, based on global collaboration and solidarity.