Beyond the Green New Deal to a Just Transition
This piece was originally published as a part of the Just Progress newsletter on June 11th, 2022. To get content like this delivered right to your inbox, please subscribe.
Dear Reader,
I’ve never sat front row to the political process before.
It’s exhilarating.
The night the Green New Deal Oversight Board (GNDOB) passed our recommendations for the 2022 and 2023 Seattle City Budgets, I was so wired I could hardly sleep – even after an hour of going hard at the bouldering gym.
I was high off the energy of shaping and passing with unanimous approval a package of 15 proposals for policies and programs aligned with climate justice and the Green New Deal (GND). The total budget of the recommendations package was $28.6M across 2022 and 2023.
Of course, $28M is somewhat paltry compared to the trillions needed nationwide and globally to effect an equitable clean energy transition. But it represents a significant investment on the part of the city, and to be only 26 with a hand in shaping this recommendations package, it feels huge.
Admittedly, my excitement is tempered by the reality that there’s no guarantee that the board’s recommendations will be adopted into the Seattle city budget as they are presented.
Our recommendations will ultimately be one of several inputs that the Mayor uses to shape their budget, which will be sent to City Council who will then go on to draft and adopt the final budget.
There’s simply no way of knowing what will happen to our recommendations on the other end of that process. However, that doesn’t mean we’re just sitting on the sidelines praying they adopt what we’ve proposed.
At both the mayoral and city council stage, the board and the public can continue to pressure our elected officials to deliver on the Green New Deal.
We’ll need to.
The city budget is still recovering from revenue shortfalls caused by the pandemic, and funds originally intended to support the GND could be directed to the general fund to cover remaining balances.
Worse still, with a recession on the horizon, the city budget will be squeezed even tighter, which means we’ll have to push hard to keep funds going toward the GND.
You’d think, given the GND’s ability to boost the economy, it wouldn’t be a hard sell, but it's been a long road a GND for Seattle.
Despite the Seattle City Council unanimously approving the GND resolution in August 2019 and again unanimously approving the creation of the GNDOB in September 2019, the first board members weren’t appointed until May 2021.
Even today, 4 members of the board are pending approval.
While this is an exasperating example of the less-than-urgent approach to climate action, I feel a strange gratitude for the delay.
If a pandemic hadn’t caused the city to take two years to get its act together and set aside funds to support the GND, I wouldn’t have been in the position to get appointed to the board.
In 2019, I was working at a space technology start-up, but by the time applications opened for appointment to the board in 2021, I was working on sustainability-focused projects with Africatown Community Land Trust. I ended up in the perfect position to earn an appointment to one of two youth representative seats on the board.
It’s a privilege and an opportunity that doesn’t feel quit real.
Not only because I’m working alongside some of the most brilliant, talented, and committed community leaders in Seattle, but also because during our first official meeting in September 2021, I was elected to the inaugural executive committee.
Don’t be too impressed by that though.
I was elected co-chair less for any unique qualifications than for the fact that I was one of three board members who ran for the three leadership positions available.
Either way, I ended up in a position to shape the roadmap that would take us from brand new board to budget recommendations over the course of 9 months.
In that time, we adopted bylaws, crafted our mission and vision, adopted definitions for GND policies, projects and programs, and conducted our first budget recommendations process.
Not bad for a volunteer board that meets once a month.
I’m impressed by what we accomplished in under a year, but the process often felt rushed.
Nonetheless, the recommendations we reached are as robust as can be under the circumstances.
After adopting our guiding documents in the first four months, we had from February to June 1st to develop recommendations for unallocated, GND funding from 2022 alongside a fresh set of recommendations for the 2023 budget.
The tight schedule was pressure enough, but underlying that, was the reality that the reputation of the GNDOB is still being formed. This process in many ways laid the foundation for how effective the GNDOB can be in the future.
That’s why the board diligently collected all the information we could to guide our recommendations.
The process began with informational briefings from City departments about their GND-aligned projects and programs.
We were briefed by the Budget Office on the allocations process.
And the Office of Sustainability & the Environment (OSE) gave a rundown of the results from previous, city-led community engagement efforts around climate and environmental justice.
Those outcomes then guided the board’s own community engagement process.
Between the briefings and the direct input from community members, the board identified five focus areas for our budget recommendations:
Address the climate crisis and environmental injustice
Build an inclusive low carbon economy
Promote community health and wellbeing
Support connections between frontline communities and the GND
Build capacity for the GND
While these focus areas and the specific recommendations under them are great, I can’t help but feel like we overlooked some aspect of climate action.
I say that because, as Maggie Thomas puts it in her essay within All We Can Save, “good climate policy must be rooted in a culture of listening.”
While the GNDOB received numerous presentations from City staff and conducted a community engagement process, we only had 150 fresh, community voices informing our process between one listening session and one online survey.
Not exactly a representative sample of the Seattle population.
I’ll admit.
The low level of community input is my fault.
And I don’t say that hypothetically.
It was my responsibility to guide the development and execution of a community engagement plan with a small work group. While we created a good plan, I failed to see us follow through on it.
Between the stress of leaving a toxic workplace to start a business and the weight of chronic anxiety, I couldn’t execute at the level I wanted to.
I say this not in the interest of pity but in the interest of transparency.
I’ve taken this as a lesson in the importance of clearly communicating to others when my capacity is limited and I need support.
Thankfully, the superstars on the OSE staff stepped up to fill the gap I left behind.
They ensured everything was completed on schedule and the results from our surveys and listening sessions compiled and collected for consideration by the budget work group.
Even with the limited community input, the board was still able to submit a strong set of recommendations.
If you’re interested, you’re welcome to read the board recommendations in full along with our mission, vision, and values. (Apologies to anyone who clicked the broken link in the last email.)
Otherwise, I’ll share a summary here with some comments of my own on recommendations I want to clarify or emphasize.
Quick disclaimer: though I am currently co-chair, the comments I offer here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the board.
If you want more information on a specific recommendation, feel free to send me an email with your question or check out the full recommendations.
Without further ado,
The Seattle Green New Deal Oversight Board's budget recommendations for 2022 and 2023:
1. $350K in 2022 and $800K in 2023 to support the GNDOB
- To fulfill our mission and accomplish our vision, the GNDOB needs additional resources and staff support.
2. $2M in 2022 and $4M in 2023 to transition low-income homes off oil heat
3. $400K in 2022 and 2023 to support Indigenous-led sustainability projects
- To avoid a clean energy economy rooted in colonialism, the GND must support First Nations’ projects that advance sustainability through food and energy sovereignty.
4. $2M in 2022 for climate resilience hubs
- These hubs will provide life-saving infrastructure during extreme weather events. This could lay the foundation for a just transition by supporting the growth of community-scale microgrids.
5. $4M in 2023 to fund the creation of climate resilience hubs
- This expands on the foundation laid by recommendation #4.
6. Increase allocation of the Environmental Justice Fund in 2023 by $300K
7. $250K in 2022 and $1M in 2023 to fund green, workforce development programs
- This would focus on youth, women, and BIPOC to address the clean energy workforce’s diversity problem.
8. $70K in 2022 and $140K to fund a Clean Energy Program and Workforce Development Advisor staff position in OSE
9. $4.6M in 2023 to fund a Clean Building Accelerator for under-resourced buildings
10. $150K in 2022 and $2M n 2023 for a program to support single-family homeowners struggling to green their homes
11. $150K to research and develop a program focused on supporting single-family rentals
12. $1.2M in 2023 to increase climate resilience projects and capacity building in local communities.
- The projects imagined here (reforestation study, just transition certification, community solar, etc.) are crucial to achieving climate justice and putting power in the hands of community.
13. $500K in 2023 to fund electrification of Seattle fleet
14. $1M in 2023 to incentive replacement of gas and diesel vehicles with EVs
- This opens the door for community-led EV car share programs that could improve air quality and mobility in low-income and BIPOC communities.
15. $1M in 2023 for a creative educational campaign around the goals of the GND
- With the majority of America eager to act but not sure how, I’m excited to see how a program like this could grow the climate movement.
All told, it’s a solid set of recommendations, especially given the constraints. We proposed just under $6.5M for 2022 and just under $22.2M for 2023.
These recommendations are just the beginning, but I believe we’ve set the stage for an equitable, community-led clean energy transition in Seattle.
I’m excited to see how the impact of these recommendations can expand beyond the GND to advance a just transition to a regenerative economy (check out the featured article for more).
What about you?
What do you think about these recommendations?
Hit reply and let me know which of the recommendations stands out to you and/or what you think we could add to ensure we achieve climate justice.
In Solidarity,
Syris
