A decade on from a financial crash so cataclysmic in its force that its impact is still felt today, a crisis of multilateralism engulfs the future of international cooperation. From climate breakdown to the global inequality crisis, the pressures facing the survival of our people and planet are global in their nature and require a multilateral response. Yet it is precisely at this critical time that its future looks increasingly uncertain. Amid the chaos, a flurry of new ideas and visions have emerged and, while much of this space has been coopted by the radical right, the Green New Deal provides an opportunity for a broader reimagining of a sustainable global economy. 

If this bold agenda is to be genuinely transformative, it must begin with an understanding that the economy and ecosystem are interwoven, and recognise that concrete efforts to safeguard against climate breakdown necessitate a reimagining of the global financial rules. The radical task of ecological transformation to avoid irreversible climate disaster requires challenging misguided assumptions underpinning areas of mainstream economics: Without, for example, acknowledging that extractive financial networks undercut the tax revenue required for green job creation, that decades of hacking away at regulation has fuelled the dilapidation of our ecosystem, or that the default response to crises management undermines the capacity for state-led democratic ownership of a just transition, the Green New Deal will fall short of being truly transformative.

A limitation of the Green New Deal in its current form as proposed in North America is that its state focus does not address underlying concerns amassing from an integrated global economy, falling short of capturing what Adam Tooze describes as "the amorphous global conglomerate". The twin goals of climate justice and social justice espoused by this idea are bigger than any state. Operationalising a form of global Green New Deal will require a joined up approach between states, regions, banks, a medley of public and private actors and international financial institutions alike.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, following the Bretton Woods conference of 1944[4]. The institutions have departed from their Keynesian roots, expanding their perceived mandates over the past three-quarters of a century to become vehicles through which the pillars of neoliberalism – privatisation, austerity and deregulation – have been channeled, often paving the way for a deepening of financialisation. Such measures have been met with decades of protest, uprising, and resistance from civil society around the world. Last year alone, campaigners called for an end to the World Bank-backed privatisation of water in Jakarta[6], and anti-austerity protests erupted amid IMF programmes in countries such as Tunisia, Argentina, Jordan and Brazil.

While the landscape is changing - in no small part down to proliferation of new multilateral development banks and China’s escalating role as a global lender - the Bretton Woods Institutions remain massively influential, as do states like the UK that play a powerful role in driving their agendas. From their neocolonial governance structures to their market-first approach, status quo international development finance is not yet compatible with the twin goals of the global Green New Deal. With just over a decade left to stop irreversible climate breakdown, tinkering around the edges is not an option. 

The following sets out some of the key barriers to achieving a such a deal under the current policies and practices of the Bretton Woods Institutions, and offers steps – shaped by key demands from global civil society organisations and trade unions – that states like the UK could take to help this transformative vision.