In July 2019, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung NYC along with Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) released Beyond NAFTA 2.0. This multi-year effort analyzed the shortcomings with the NAFTA 2.0 agreement and outlined a progressive alternative path toward a trade agenda prioritizing people and planet over profits. Despite the many faults in the agreement, one specifically took root in any language of opposition—climate.
In January 2020, the US Senate voted to ratify the agreement 89-10. Of the ten Senators to vote against it, then Senator, now Vice President Kamala Harris said, “by not addressing climate change, the U.S.M.C.A. fails to meet the crises of this moment.” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer added, “I am voting against USMCA because it does not address climate change.” While our report highlighted the plethora of ways that the trade regime is holding us back, climate resonated and became the key area of contestation.
Yet despite this, our movements remain siloed. Climate activists and trade activists rarely overlap or understand the same vernacular. Therefore, RLS-NYC, CCPA, IATP, and IPS have come together to create GreenNewTrade.org.
We created this because while the Green New Deal framework has resonated worldwide, it is fundamentally impossible to achieve without changing the trade regime that stands in the way of meaningful climate action.
While some governments warm to the ideas and policies in the Green New Deal, they continue to cling to international trade and investment rules that hold us all back from setting strong environmental and job-creation policies. We need to change this—and we can.
We hope GreenNewTrade.org can be a reference for climate activists and trade activists to use in the fight for the Green New Deal world we need. With this standalone website we outline the steps to fundamentally transform the trade regime so we can achieve the Green New Deal future we need.
This project was created in partnership with CCPA, IATP, and IPS, and was designed by the Spumoni Cooperative.
Please check out GreenNewTrade.org
