The Green New Deal Has Been Released. Here Are 4 Key Tech Takeaways.
The proposal is ambitious, wide-ranging, and somewhat pragmatic about technology’s role. But whether it will ever see the light of day is unclear.
By James Temple
The promise of a “Green New Deal” has electrified US politics, but it has largely remained a loose set of goals rather than a defined list of policies: until now.
On Thursday morning, US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, put forth a framework that finally elucidates at least some of the environmental package’s more concrete proposals.
Much of it was expected. It spells out the authors’ ambitions to slash greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture, construction, energy, and transportation. It also mandates modernizing the grid and fortifying cities against climate disasters.
What’s more interesting is that the new framework finally provides new details on the mix of technologies that could be employed to accomplish these goals, addressing a hot-button issue that energy and environmental groups have already been vigorously debating (see “Let’s keep the Green New Deal grounded in science”).
