The New School Observatory of Latin America (OLA) and the Reconvexo Collective invite to the Seminar
“A Green New Deal to Latin America: challenges to Brazil”
Wednesday, February 5, 6pm, Wolff Conference Room
The New School for Social Research - 6 E 16 th St, Room D1103
Climate change is a global phenomenon and demands policy coordination between scholars and policy makers worldwide. Brazil is the 7 th largest GHG emitter in the world and the US is the 2nd largest emitter. Although the main emission sources and the challenges differ between those countries, the solutions should have synergies and follow similar solutions while the political movements should cooperate globally. In the US, we observe a civil societal effort towards the energy transition. The US Green New Deal (GND) was established as a political movement based on a strong interdisciplinary academic background, including natural sciences, sociology, politics and economics and the Modern Money Theory. In Brazil, the investment in renewable energy has increased since 2009. In 2018, 82% of the electricity was generated by renewable sources. An effort is needed to increase that share, improve energy efficiency and tackle the Amazon deforestation rates. This seminar will discuss the political and economic challenges to implement a Green New Deal in Latina America and in the US, comparing the case of Brazil and of the US.
Speakers:
Jaques Wagner (Senator – Brazil): VP for the senate environmental commission in Brazil, former governor of the State of Bahia and Ministry of State during Lula and Dilma governments.
Stephanie Kelton (Stony Brook University): Professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University, Senior economic advisor for Bernie 2020, author of the book “The Deficit Myth”.
Daniel Aldana Cohen (University of Pennsylvania): Professor of sociology at UPenn, where he directs the Socio-spatial Climate Collaborative. He coauthored the book “A Planet to Win: why we need a Green New Deal”.
Randall Wray (Levy Institute): Professor of Economics at Bard College and senior scholar at the Levy Institute. Author of several books including “Modern Money Theory: a primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems”.