Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

Online Symposium Fall 2020: Global-Cultural Environmental Justice—Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Perspectives

Edward B. Barbier, “How to make a post-COVID Green New Deal work.”

The economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic will be long and arduous.  However, simply reviving the existing “brown” economy will exacerbate irreversible climate change, biodiversity loss and other environmental risks. Instead, we must foster green structural transformation of our economy.  This will require a long-term commitment – perhaps 5 to 10 years – of public investments and policy reforms.  Yet already government finances have been stretched thin and debt is rising because of the pandemic.  This presentation explains that a workable and affordable Green New Deal is possible, if we adopt the right strategy and policies.

Edward B. Barbier is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics, Colorado State University and a Senior Scholar in the School of Global Environmental Sustainability. His main expertise is natural resource and development economics as well as the interface between economics and ecology.  http://www.edwardbbarbier.com/ .  His recent work focuses on policies for greening the post-pandemic recovery, which is summarized in his World Economic Forum blog post Here’s how to deliver a green recovery for the G20 economies.

Response by Les Thiele, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political Science at UF; Director of Sustainability Studies.

More information here.