While the Inflation Reduction Act proved that Congress can, in fact, act on climate, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is already setting his sights on a more extreme approach. Shortly after a new Congress is sworn in this coming January, a bill familiar to climate activists will likely be introduced for the third time.
The Green New Deal, or more specifically “Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal,” was first introduced in February 2019 and touted as the solution to climate change. But, in the nearly four years since the resolution was initially introduced, its introduction and a Senate floor vote without a single “yes” are its only accomplishments.
Meanwhile, our climate is undeniably changing. From the beginning of 2019 to the end of last year, it’s estimated that 107.91 billion tons of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere. More than 20 million acres of forestland have burned in the last three years. Since 2019, both nuclear energy capacity and generation in the U.S. have dropped. Cities across the country are on track to have the hottest summer on record.
Green New Deal advocates assert that climate change is an urgent problem in need of immediate solutions, yet they’re willing to hinge all of their success on a nonbinding resolution that “wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.” Similarly, the Build Back Better Act was touted as the biggest climate bill in history, but it also included provisions on healthcare, child care, and more that were nonstarters for conservatives.
If climate change is urgent, and we agree that it is, we should pursue the commonsense solutions right in front of us. Climate change requires a dynamic, multifaceted approach. The principles behind the Green New Deal will not successfully solve climate change, but even if they could, it wouldn’t be as simple as passing a nonbinding resolution. There is not one single solution to climate change; there are many solutions that must work together, and they don’t have to be crammed into one bill.
We need innovative energy solutions such as next-generation nuclear energy and battery storage to improve the reliability of renewable sources such as wind and solar. We need to harness the power of nature by planting new trees, properly managing the forests we have, and employing regenerative agricultural practices, all priorities that the Inflation Reduction Act included. We need to streamline burdensome regulations that make it harder to deploy clean energy in this country, and we need to own the fact that in the U.S., we produce energy and mine resources with cleaner methods than other nations.
Rather than an all-or-nothing strategy, we must commit to climate action through a long-term, incremental approach. Not all of these policy proposals need to be passed in a single bill; we should build coalitions around specific priorities. For instance, natural climate solutions, such as planting trees or precision agriculture, are widely bipartisan. There’s no reason lawmakers shouldn’t be prioritizing bills such as the Trillion Trees Act or the Growing Climate Solutions Act. These bills alone won’t solve climate change, but they’re meaningful steps toward a cleaner future.
The bottom line is that while the Green New Deal resolution has been languishing, the climate has continued to change. People across the country and around the world are reckoning with the effects of climate change. We must leave behind performative rhetoric in favor of real action.
There’s a better way forward, an approach that involves all stakeholders, from climate activists to farmers, hunters, scientists, and entrepreneurs. We don’t need a Green New Deal. We need all hands on deck and a true climate commitment.
Benji Backer (@BenjiBacker) and Danielle Butcher (@DaniSButcher) serve on the American Conservation Coalition’s senior leadership and were founding members of the organization. In 2019, they were awarded Forbes 30 Under 30 in the energy category.
