Financial Bailout Spending Would Have Almost Paid for Thirty Years of Global Green New Deal Climate: Triage,Regeneration,and Mitigation

Abstract

Human-induced climate crisis is destroying the capacity of our planet to support our species and other life at an unprecedented rate. The most urgent of climate crisis tipping points is Arctic warming and sea ice loss. It is estimated that Arctic summer sea ice loss, that could—based on current trends—occur in one or two decades, would cause an abrupt 0.5 Watts per square meter increase in global warming above preindustrial levels that would be roughly equivalent to the effect of more than seventeen years of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if it occurred today. A Global Green New Deal (GGND) will require at least three phases and three funding sources. The three overlapping phases are (a) short-run climate restoration or triage, (b) medium-term soil carbon sponge and water cycle adaptation or regeneration, and (c) long-run GHG drawdown or mitigation. The three funding sources are (a) utilizing the sovereign of the US government and Federal Reserve to create dollars, (b) taxing GHG emissions, and (c) taxing wealthy and high-income individuals with a particular focus on rentiers. The ex-nihilo financial support offered by the Fed to bail out the global financial system from 2008 to 2011 would have been almost sufficient to fund a 2020–2050 comprehensive GGND that includes all of the components above.