Climate Justice, Environmental Justice, and Green Economy

During these dark Trump times, some good climate news: NY Governor Andrew Cuomo announced an major climate jobs initiative based on work that my colleagues at the Worker Institute and I did. This work is part of Labor Leading on Climate, a three-year initiative of the Worker Institute that, “advances knowledge, policies, and practices to enhance the role of labor and working people in addressing the environmental and climate crises. The initiative’s efforts focus on building a truly sustainable society and economy.” As part of this initiative, I co-authored a report Reversing Inequality, Combatting Climate Change: A Climate Jobs Program for New York, which was the basis for the climate jobs initiative that lays out a policy agenda for creating good, family-sustaining jobs while substantially reducing carbon emissions.

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For over a year and a half, Urban Agenda convened 170+ stakeholders to create a vision for how to build an equitable green economy in New York City. The culmination of that effort is the New York City Green-Collar Jobs Roadmap, a co-release between Urban Agenda and the Center for American Progress. The Roadmap covers six priority areas: growing the green economy and green jobs, ensuring these jobs are good jobs that reach target populations, transitioning existing workforces into sustainable fields, increasing coordination between agencies and local, state, and federal efforts, expanding and greening existing programs, and collecting data for refining programs and approaches.