Amidst overlapping environmental and economic crises, green industrial policy (GIP) is playing an increasingly salient role in global politics. But conceptions of what GIP is—or what it can or should be—vary a great deal, particularly as different countries face profoundly different terrain for its potential scope and implementation.
In this report, we establish a universal, normative framework for evaluating GIP, while also incorporating into our analysis the inequalities and power imbalances that exist between the Global North and the Global South. Our vision of GIP driven by and for the public good is intended to foster a pro-working-class, pro-development green transformation, which at this moment is so desperately needed throughout the world.
Such a transformation is at present a tall order, as the world’s political and economic rules are structured to benefit the wealthy elite, not the working class or the biosphere. For stark evidence, one now needs look no further than the “fossil-fueled ethnonationalism” currently driving the US government.
Consequently, our framework goes beyond the simplistic binaries that tend to structure debates on industrial policy (e.g., that pit development against environment, or crudely contrast market-oriented vs. statist approaches). Instead, we reintegrate economy and ecology, and attend to the multi-scalar power relations that structure policy outcomes. We also highlight collective actors often ignored in GIP debates, such as labor unions and community organizations, and assess the “green” credentials of GIP, attending, for example, to impacts across the supply chain.
GIP done well could help build a globally just and ecologically sustainable world based around human flourishing rather than profit and domination. Only coordination and cooperation among Global South countries alongside a truly green and egalitarian internationalism from the Global North might realize such a future. This report can serve as a guide and resource for the organizations and movements who will make it happen.
Desirable and undesirable features of green industrial policy
