What Makes It a Just Transition? A Case Study of Renewable Rikers

Abstract

In the spring of 2018 New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey introduced a joint resolution proposing a Green New Deal. Modeled loosely on the New Deal, the Green New Deal offers a roadmap for reducing United States carbon footprint and avoiding the worst consequences of climate change. A cornerstone of the Green New Deal is the commitment to a “just transition”—to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a process that is fair and just for communities and workers. Similarly, New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act requires that the state convene a just transition working group. On the surface, that sounds great—who opposes fairness and justice? But, as always, the devil is in the details.

This essay offers New York City’s Renewable Rikers as an example of what a just transition might look like in practice. Specifically, this paper describes how Renewable Rikers connects the need for non-polluting energy infrastructure with a broader conversation about decarceration and racial justice to build an inclusive pathway for prosperity and environmental health for all New Yorkers. The first part of this essays sets the stage with a brief overview of the climate crisis. Part two sketches the contours of what constitutes a just transition as that term is used in the Green New Deal Resolution. Part three situates the idea of a just transition against the current racialized injustices embedded in the carceral state. Part four turns to Renewable Rikers. After describing the history of incarceration on Rikers Island, and contours of the Renewable Rikers project, this section highlights the creativity of the partnerships, legal structures, and participation processes embedded in the Renewable Rikers project. The final section draws some early lessons from Renewable Rikers, suggesting how it does and does not offer a model for how to solve what Nadia Ahmad has called “the tsunami arising from the carceral state and extractivist economy.”

Keywords: Green New Deal, Just Transition, Renewable Rikers, Renewable Energy, Decarceration, Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Criminal Justice Reform, Environmental Racism, Structural Racism

JEL Classification: K14, K32, K42, O44, P21, P28, R52, Q01, Q20, Q35, Q4