On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

by Naomi Klein

It isn’t only the fossil fuel companies who have put their own super profits ahead of the safety of our species for decades; so have the financial institutions that underwrote their investments, in full knowledge of the risks. Which is why, in addition to eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, governments can insist on getting a much fairer share of the financial sector’s massive earnings by imposing a transaction tax, which could raise $650 billion globally, according to the European Parliament. And then there is the military. If the military budgets of the top ten military spenders globally were cut by 25 percent, that would free up $325 billion annually, according to numbers reported by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute—funds that could be spent on energy transition and preparing communities for the extreme weather ahead. Meanwhile, a mere 1 percent billionaire’s tax could raise $45 billion a year globally, according to the United Nations—not to mention the money that would be raised through an international effort to close down tax havens. In 2015 the estimated private financial wealth of individuals stashed unreported in tax havens around the globe was somewhere between $24 trillion and $36 trillion,