,,, lol I think you should google how the coal industry "donates" to the government.. and how many Government officials have stock in coal.
Not the whole story either.
First germany is getting out of coal. Thats decided already. activists still quarrel about how fast. (2020 or 2038). Issue there is f.e. that coal companies are a large supplier of work in entire regions of the country, so if you dont find perspectives for those people - its kind of hard to sell your economic plan.
Paying money for access to politicians is the norm - dont forget that. Germany isnt very high in world wide corruption ratings, last time I checked..
Lets not stick with this example (germany very likely can tank 'getting out of coal'), but go to 'subsidies for fossile fuels in general' - so tax exemptions or - additional payments for 'mobility' or fossile fuel based heating from the state.
The idea of a green new deal is, to axe all of those, and use them to subsidize green investments instead. This means a large reduction in potential mobility (even job related) for a large amount of citizens, this means a large nominal reduction in GDP for the country. That has to be offset somehow. Answer then is always "through green growth", but its very hard to imagine that that will work well in the 'lets say transition years'. (You have to add, that at the same time, corporations are meant to pay CO2 taxes that would be used to finance the increasing energy costs of poor people, and innovate themselves out of those 'sunken costs' (reduce CO2 production to have to pay less CO2 taxes in the future) at the same time).
The last study that I've read on that talked about being maybe a little better off (point something percent of GDP), if we assume economic growth (not degrowth) at a low level (1.3 percent annual) and 'some restructuring' in terms of societal outlooks and behaviors. On afair the 2050 time horizon.
Meaning, you'd not want to travel to foreign countries so much, you'd not want to own your own cars so much, you'd not want to own so much stuff so much - but consume more in virtual or service based economies, ...
You get the drift..
Also, germany has some of the highest energy prices in the world already. (So paying higher amounts for green energy (earlier) doesnt sound so bad...)
So you have this huge investment effort. That arguably is needed. That tells you upfront - you wont be that much better off 2050 (if at all), that you also have to change your life for, to have less of what you'd see as status symbols right now, to then end up in an economy where the service sector reigns supreme (not that much social mobility), and you consume a larger amount of virtual goods and services. While rich people get most of the gains (production in other countries, or highly automated), and have to suffer the fewest setbacks (they can afford to pay a bit more, to offset the higher costs of - everything that would get more expensive).
In exchange for that you get 'some sectors with promised economic growth'. Which at the same time will not mean 'more jobs' necessarily (automation and digitization), which certainly will not mean more well paying jobs (Probably increasing the divide between rich and poor).
And then we might tax automation to give people UBI, or something.
Ah - the future...
In Europe we then currently tell each other, but the Boomers are dying off by then, so with far fewer people in our civilizations over all this could actually be quite chill.
And our kids then might get proper economic growth again. Oh, theil be so smart - they'll find a way.
And then you have to realize, that it was mostly Boomers that voted for this to be our future.
Well - if votes mattered that much.
It is a necessity, you know.
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edit: In the US AOC actually has a few more selling points for this. So f.e. you'll need infrastructure investment as a country in a few years (those are basically jobs that have to be filled with people), and you are currently being scalped by big pharma, so there is some fat you can 'cut out' to benefit folks equally, and you still dont have universal healthcare (which really should be just a restructuring at the cost of big pharma) which is what you always could give people in exchange for swallowing a bitter pill. And you have countries close to your borders you still could develop (growth engine).
