Feminist Engagements with Green New Deals Infographic
The Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights is excited to share our new infographic: "Feminist Engagements with Green New Deals: Are They Green Enough, New Enough, & Who Gets the Raw End of the Deal?"
This new infographic aims to increase our understanding of Green New Deals, and the ways in which, in their current guises, they will fail to tackle the interconnected ecological and inequalities crises they aim to address. In the words of Consortium Director, Carol Cohn:
"Right now a lot of people who are concerned about climate change are pinning their hopes on Green New Deals. But Green New Deals will fall tragically short unless they integrate feminist analysis. When you view the full gamut of intersectional, global feminist critiques and interventions, it is clear that if the goal is to avert a worsening of the intertwined ecological and global inequalities crises, anything less than a direct addressing of the root causes is wildly insufficient – and arguably something we just cannot afford when time is so short and the situation for so many humans and other species is so dire.
"Feminists demand that GNDs facilitate a transformation of the current economic, social, and political systems, a paradigm shift in our understanding of human’s relationship with the rest of nature, and a thorough reckoning of the role of colonial histories in creating the current crises."
We encourage you to use this infographic as a tool to push governments, political parties and all others developing Green New Deals or other proposals for tackling climate breakdown in just and inclusive ways. Only if they take on the insights from diverse feminists around the globe will they be able to come up with solutions that are truly effective and truly just.
To download the infographic, you can access a web quality PDF file here and a print quality PDF file here.
Feminist Engagements with GNDs Infographic - CGSHR (Web Quality).pdf
Feminist Engagements with GNDs Infographic - CGSHR (Print Quality).pdf
Contributors
Design, Illustration, and Editing by Media Co-op
Email: hello@mediaco-op.net Phone: +44 07587 347726
Research, Design, and Writing by Carol Cohn and Claire Duncanson.
Research Assistance from Consortium Interns Dylan Moore, Colleen Putzel, Felicia McDevitt, and Sarah Bash.
Sources
For Panel 1: Who Gets the Jobs?
• Pollin, Robert, Shouvik Chakraborty, and Jeannette Wicks-Lim. 2021. “Employment Impacts of Proposed U.S. Economic Stimulus Programs: Job Creation, Job Quality, and Demographic Distribution Measures.” https://peri.umass.edu/publication/item/1397-employment-impacts-of-proposed-u-s-economic-stimulus-programs; see p39 for the demographic breakdown of the current workforce within clean energy sectors.
Further Reading and Evidence:
• IRENA. 2019. “Renewable Energy: A Gender Perspective.” Abu Dhabi: IRENA. https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2019/Jan/IRENA_Gender_perspective_2019.pdf
• Littig, Beate. 2017. “Good green jobs for whom? A feminist critique of the green economy.” In Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment, edited by Sherilyn MacGregor, 318–330. Abingdon: Routledge.
• Muro, Mark, Adie Tomer, Ranjitha Shivaram, and Joseph Kane. 2019. “Advancing Inclusion Through Clean Energy Jobs.” Washington, D.C.: Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/research/advancing-inclusion-through-clean-energy-jobs/
Panel 2: Whose Work Counts as Green? Who Cares?
• Palladino, Lenore, and Rhiana Gunn-Wright. 2021. “Care & Climate: Understanding the Policy Intersections.” Feminist Green New Deal Coalition. http://feministgreennewdeal.com/2021/04/15/care-&-climate:-understanding-the-policy-intersections/
Further Reading and Evidence:
• Bidegain Pointe, Nicole, Eleanor Blomstrom, Priti Darooka, Conny van Heemstra, Ipek Ilkkaracan, Thalia Kidder, Mascha Madörin, et al. 2013. “Sustainable Economy and Green Growth: Who Cares?: International Workshop Linking Care, Livelihood and Sustainable Economy.” Berlin: German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. https://wedo.org/new-report-sustainable-economy-and-green-growth-who-cares/
• Cohen, Maeve, and Sherilyn MacGregor. 2020. “Towards a Feminist Green New Deal for the UK.” Women’s Budget Group and Women’s Environmental Network. https://wbg.org.uk/analysis/uk-policy-briefings/gender-and-the-green-new-deal/
• Coffey, Clare, Patricia Espinoza Revollo, Rowan Harvey, Max Lawson, Anam Parvez Butt, Kim Piaget, Diana Sarosi, and Julie Thekkudan. 2020. “Time to Care: Unpaid and Underpaid Care Work and the Global Inequality Crisis.” Oxford: Oxfam International. https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/time-care
Panel 3: The Big Guns
• Crawford, Neta C. 2019. “Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War.” Providence, RI: Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/ClimateChangeandCostofWar
Further Reading and Evidence:
• Belcher, Oliver, Patrick Bigger, Ben Neimark, and Cara Kennelly. 2019. “Hidden Carbon Costs of the ‘Everywhere War’: Logistics, Geopolitical Ecology, and the Carbon Boot-Print of the US Military.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographer. 2020. 45 (1): 65–80.
• Parkinson, Stuart. 2020. “The Carbon Boot-Print of the Military.” Responsible Science, no. 2: 18–20. https://www.sgr.org.uk/publications/responsible-science-no-2
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. n.d. “Climate Finance Data Portal.” https://unfccc.int/climatefinance?home
Panel 4: Hiding the Dirt
• On the explosion of mining required for “clean” energy, see: Hund, Kirsten, Daniele La Porta, Thao P. Fabregas, Tim Laing, and John Drexhage. 2020. Minerals for Climate Action: The Mineral Intensity of the Clean Energy Transition. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group. https://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/961711588875536384/Minerals-for-Climate-Action-The-Mineral-Intensity-of-the-Clean-Energy-Transition.pdf
• On lithium mining, see: Balch, Oliver. 2020. “The Curse of ‘White Oil’: Electric Vehicles’ Dirty Secret.” The Guardian, December 8. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/dec/08/the-curse-of-white-oil-electric-vehicles-dirty-secret-lithium; Katwala, Amit. 2018. “The Spiralling Environmental Cost of Our Lithium Battery Addiction." Wired UK, May 8. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact; Livingstone, Grace. 2019. “The Farmers Who Worry About Our Phone Batteries.” BBC News, August 15. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49355817
• On e-waste, see: McAllister, Lucy, Amanda Magee, and Benjamin Hale. 2014. “Women, E-Waste, and Technological Solutions to Climate Change.” Health and Human Rights Journal 16 (1): 166–78.
• On the demand for biofuels, see: Kay, Sylvia. 2019. “Landgrabbing: Contested Meanings of Land.” In Spotlight Report on Sustainability in Europe: Who Is Paying the Bill? (Negative) Impacts of EU Policies and Practices in the World, 50–59. SDG Watch Europe. https://www.tni.org/my/node/24737
Further Reading and Evidence:
• Aronoff, Kate, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. 2019. A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal. London: Verso Books.
• Auciello, Benjamin Hitchcock. 2019. A Just(ice) Transition is a Post Extractive Transition. London: War on Want; London: London Mining Network. https://waronwant.org/sites/default/files/Post-Extractivist_Transition_WEB_0.pdf
• Borras Jr, Saturnino M., Philip Seufert, Stephan Backes, Daniel Fyfe, Roman Herre, Laura Michele, and Elyse Mills. 2016. “Land Grabbing and Human Rights: The Involvement of European Corporate and Financial Entities in Land Grabbing Outside the European Union.” European Parliament. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EXPO_STU(2016)578007
• Dengler, Corinna, and Lisa Marie Seebacher. 2019. “What About the Global South? Towards a Feminist Decolonial Degrowth Approach.” Ecological Economics 157: 246–52.
• Dominish, Elsa, Sven Teske, and Nick Florin. 2019. Responsible Minerals Sourcing for Renewable Energy. Report prepared for Earthworks by the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney. https://earthworks.org/assets/uploads/2019/04/MCEC_UTS_Report_lowres-1.pdf
Panel 5: Facing the Facts
• For the impossibility of infinite growth, see: Hickel, Jason. 2020. Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World. London: Penguin Random House
• For the example of REDD+’s failure to successfully curb deforestation, see: Morton, Adam. 2020. “Football Pitch-Sized Area of Tropical Rainforest Lost Every Six Seconds.” The Guardian, June 2. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/02/football-pitch-area-tropical-rainforest-lost-every-six-seconds; Global Forest Watch. n.d. “Forest Monitoring, Land Use & Deforestation Trends.” https://www.globalforestwatch.org/
• For the statistic on global inequality, see: Alvaredo, Facundo, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Pikety, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman. 2018. “World Inequality Report 2018.” World Inequality Lab. https://wir2018.wid.world/
Further Reading and Evidence:
• Andersen, Bente Hessellund. 2016. “Bioenergy in the EU.” Amsterdam: Transnational Institute. https://www.tni.org/en/publication/bioenergy-in-the-eu
• Berkhout, Esmé, Nick Galasso, Max Lawson, Pablo Andrés Rivero Morales, Anjela Taneja, and Diego Alejo Vázquez Pimentel. 2021. “The Inequality Virus: Bringing Together a World Torn Apart by Coronavirus through a Fair, Just and Sustainable Economy.” Oxfam International. https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/inequality-virus
• Coffey, Clare, Patricia Espinoza Revollo, Rowan Harvey, Max Lawson, Anam Parvez Butt, Kim Piaget, Diana Sarosi, and Julie Thekkudan. 2020. “Time to Care: Unpaid and Underpaid Care Work and the Global Inequality Crisis.” Oxfam International. https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/time-care
• GRAIN. 2021. “Corporate Greenwashing: ‘Net Zero’ and ‘Nature-Based Solutions’ Are a Deadly Fraud.” GRAIN. https://grain.org/en/article/6634-corporate-greenwashing-net-zero-and-nature-based-solutions-are-a-deadly-fraud
• Stabinsky, Doreen. 2021. “Chasing Carbon Unicorns: The Deception of Carbon Markets and ‘Net Zero.’” Amsterdam: Friends of the Earth International. https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Friends-of-the-earth-international-carbon-unicorns-english.pdf
• The World Counts. n.d. “Global Challenges.” https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges
• Women & Gender Constituency. 2021. “Article 6 of the Paris Agreement: Market Mechanisms.” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. https://womengenderclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/WGC_IssueBrief_Article6_EN.pdf
Panel 6: Paradigm Shift, Not Techno Fix
• For the unproven, expensive and risky nature of SRM, see: TC Group. 2021. “Solar Geoengineering: Warnings from Scientists, Indigenous Peoples and Climate Activists.” June 10. 2:31:00. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVs8juLCYyQ
• For the unproven, expensive and risky nature of CCS, see: Food & Water Watch. 2020. “The Case Against Carbon Capture: False Claims and New Pollution.” Issue Brief. Washington, D.C.: Food & Water Watch. https://foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ib_2003_carboncapture-web.pdf; Friends of the Earth Scotland and Global Witness. 2021. “Briefing: Tyndall Centre, ‘A Review of the Role of Fossil Fuel-Based Carbon Capture and Storage in the Energy System.’" https://foe.scot/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/CCS-Research-Summary-Briefing.pdf
Further reading and evidence:
• Biofuelwatch. 2021. “Carbon Capture and Storage: Green Solution or Climate Disaster?” October 18. 1:28:35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr0VWVC2p0Q
• Celermajer, Danielle, David Schlosberg, Lauren Schlosberg, Makere Stewart-Harawira, Mathias Thaler, Petra Tschakert, Blanche Verlie, and Christine Winter. 2021. “Multispecies Justice: Theories, Challenges, and a Research Agenda for Environmental Politics.” Environmental Politics 30 (1–2): 119–40.
• Mann, Michael. 2021. “Some Say We Can ‘Solar-Engineer’ Ourselves out of the Climate Crisis. Don’t Buy It.” The Guardian, April 22. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/22/climate-crisis-emergency-earth-day
Panel 7: What’s the Economy for Anyway?
• Cohn, Carol and Claire Duncanson (2020) "Whose recovery? IFI prescriptions for postwar states," Review of International Political Economy, 27:6, 1214-1234.
• Dengler, Corinna, and Birte Strunk. 2018. “The Monetized Economy Versus Care and the Environment: Degrowth Perspectives on Reconciling an Antagonism.” Feminist Economics 24 (3): 160–83.
• Di Chiro, Giovanna. 2019. “Care Not Growth: Imagining a Subsistence Economy for All.” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 21 (2): 303–11.
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