Green New Deal for the People Tour
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — November 1, 2023
Contact: Prerna Jagadeesh, jagadeesh@greennewdealnetwork.org, 508-455-8275
Green New Deal Network launching Green New Deal For The People Tour, Reignite Urgency For Investing in Communities to Mitigate the Impacts of the Climate Crisis
Sen. Ed Markey, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, and other progressive leaders to join rallies in 8 states calling on President Biden to enact a Green New Deal and pass $1 trillion a year to create green jobs and combat climate harms
WASHINGTON D.C. — Today, the Green New Deal Network (GNDN) — the multi-sectoral hub of the movement for a Green New Deal — is launching its national Green New Deal for the People tour. As the 2024 elections approach and the crescendo of calls for bolder national climate action rises, GNDN and member organizations including the Sunrise Movement, People’s Action, and Center for Popular Democracy will hit the road alongside state and local activists to push for a federal Green New Deal agenda that invests $1 trillion a year in combating the climate crisis and protects our fundamental environmental, health, and economic rights. Joining the tour are key Green New Deal allies in Congress including Sen. Ed Markey, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, and Rep. Summer Lee. The first tour stop will be in Michigan on Sunday, November 2.
The Green New Deal for the People tour will make stops for rallies in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, California, and Iowa. The tour will bring together elected leaders, advocates for climate, labor, and racial justice, and local communities in the ongoing fight for Green New Deal policies that ensure everyone has access to clean air and water, family-sustaining union jobs, safe and healthy housing and transportation.
On the tour, GNDN and movement partners will call on President Biden and Democratic leaders to take bold legislative and executive action that will inspire working families, young people, and people of color to vote for leaders who commit to investing in the health and safety of our communities. This includes:
Congress must invest the needed $1 trillion every year between now and 2030 in climate policy that includes provisions for care, education, labor, and racial justice;
The Green New Deal will include equity, climate, and labor standards in every single federal investment and ensure that all new green jobs are union jobs;
President Biden must enact federal executive actions to implement a Green New Deal such as declaring a climate emergency to employ the Defense Production Act.
“Five years ago, we introduced the Green New Deal. And ever since our movement has only grown bigger and stronger—and we’re not stopping now. Last year we passed the largest ever climate bill in American history and now we’re ready to keep fighting to make it the smallest,” said Senator Ed Markey. “We need to clean up pollution in neighborhoods, make renewable energy accessible to all, bring green union jobs to our communities, and ensure true justice and equity for all. I can’t wait to join our Green New Deal movement in Massachusetts to celebrate what we’ve already achieved together and fight for so much more. As we head into the 2024 elections, now is the time for a big, bold, vision of a Green New Deal future that everyone can believe in. I can’t wait to build it together on the Green New Deal for the People tour.”
“From worker strikes to wildfires, this year has been a brutal wakeup call for all who care about a fair and livable world. Working people across the nation urgently need even bolder federal investments in climate, care, jobs, and justice,” said Kaniela Ing, National Director at the Green New Deal Network. “The Green New Deal for the People tour is about showing the strength and unity of our movement and inspiring new leaders to join us in our vision of a better world. We are building the foundation for climate advocates, union members, anti-racists, and people everywhere to stand together against corporate polluters and their elected enablers.”
“As we face the devastating impacts of climate change and confront the harms of underinvestment in redlined communities and schools, we must center our kids and their futures,” said Congressman Jamaal Bowman, Ed.D. (NY-16). “I’m proud to support the Green New Deal Network’s Green New Deal tour to share this vision with students, educators, and communities across the country. My Green New Deal for Public Schools will make the urgent and necessary investments we need to revitalize our public education system and improve our climate resiliency, but we need to make sure every single corner of our society gets the same level of healing. With our Green New Deals for public schools, housing, cities, and more, we can make historic investments that transform our communities by repairing damage done by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis and giving every person the resources they need to thrive.”
“Western Pennsylvania – what used to be a playground for fossil fuels – sent a Green New Deal politician to Congress, knowing I’ll fight not only for our children’s health, but for worker power and good union jobs,” said Congresswoman Summer Lee (PA-12). “In election after election, Pittsburghers have come together to elect progressives up and down the ballot because they want to stop corporate polluters from pumping toxins into any more Black, brown and poor communities on the backs of taxpayers. Because they’re tired of fossil fuel billionaires and the politicians they bankroll trying to turn us against each other, calling us “radical” for organizing for our children and our economy to thrive. Pittsburgh led the country’s labor movement and Pittsburgh is leading this multi-racial, multi-generational movement to right the wrongs of environmental racism and demand clean air and water, worker power, union jobs, lower costs and a future where all of us can thrive. If that’s not a blueprint for how we beat fascism in 2024, I’m not sure what is.”
“Working people of all races, genders, and backgrounds, from big cities to small towns, are organizing to win the investments and reforms we need to thrive,” said Sophia Cheng, Climate Justice Campaign Director at People’s Action. “Protecting our communities from the climate crisis and the corporate bad actors behind it is a priority for our movement. Following the hottest summer on record, we need President Biden to deepen his commitment to investments in clean energy and in sustainable housing, transportation, and public schools. It’s past time to end the era of fossil fuels.”
“We’re in a climate emergency, and if Joe Biden wants to be taken seriously by young people ahead of the 2024 election, he needs to act like it and back a Green New Deal,” said John Paul Meija, National Spokesperson at Sunrise Movement. “Day by day, more people are feeling the stakes of the climate crisis in their homes, schools, and workplaces. Biden has a choice about what his legacy is: will he be remembered for protecting millions of lives, or failing our generation and condemning us to climate chaos.”
"In a time when our public health, climate, and economic safety depend on our society taking real steps towards a just, truly intersectional future in clean energy, those elected to make a change are too comfortable sitting on the fence between compassion and care for the many, or record profits for corporate polluters and their stooges in elected office,” said Mikal Goodman, Manager with Michigan Alliance for Justice In Climate. “Michigan communities, especially those that are poor and BIPOC, are burdened with some of the harshest environmental justice conditions in the nation – and we’ve been neglected for long enough. We need climate champions in office that will join us in our relentless push for climate justice from local communities in Michigan to rural towns and big cities across the country. We are calling on President Biden and Congress to bring true Climate Justice and a Green New Deal home to our people and our planet in a way that helps all of us not just survive, but thrive.”
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About the Green New Deal Network
The Green New Deal Network is a nationwide network of organizations committed to transforming our politics and economy with policies that address the climate crisis, that create good, union jobs, and that repair past harm and advance justice. The Network includes coalitions in 23 states, as well as a coordinating team of 14 national organizations: Center for Popular Democracy, Climate Justice Alliance, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Greenpeace, Indigenous Environmental Network, Indivisible, Movement for Black Lives, MoveOn, People’s Action, Right To The City Alliance, Service Employees International Union, Sunrise Movement, US Climate Action Network, and the Working Families Party.
