Join the fight for a socialist future
Alex Sampson, Plymouth Socialist Party
January 2025 was the hottest on record, with surface air temperature at 1.75°C above pre-industrial levels. This shocked climate scientists who expected it to be slightly lower than previous due to the beginning of La Niña, which normally brings a pattern of cooling to the Pacific region. Climate scientist Bill McGuire suggests that this shows “dangerous, all-pervasive climate breakdown has arrived.”
January was also the month of catastrophic wildfires in California which destroyed 11,000 homes. Despite this, and clear evidence of continued climate crisis, US President Donald Trump has pulled out of the Paris Accords on climate change and is pushing ahead with his “drill, baby, drill” plan to continue US reliance on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
Governments who still pay lip service to the Paris Accords aren’t taking the action necessary to prevent climate catastrophe. Starmer’s Labour Party, prior to the general election, promised to pump £24 billion into green initiatives to work towards the UK’s net-zero targets. These promises have since rolled back for the sake of ‘fiscal responsibility’ as attempts to keep the mean global temperature increase to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels seems to slip further out of reach.
Pro-capitalist governments around the world are more interested in continuing their cosy and profitable relationships with oil-producing companies or racing to corner the market in the ‘rare earth elements’ needed for current green technologies. Tit-for-tat tariffs and trade wars are becoming the norm rather than the unified, co-ordinated response needed on a global scale.
While the threat of climate change is an existential and very real threat, things are not hopeless, but it will require the socialist transformation of society. Capitalism, a system based on profit and competing nation states, caused this problem and is incapable of solving it.
An alternative to unending climate destruction does exist. By removing profit and putting the working class in charge we could democratically plan production, investment and research for what we need, not what makes a profit for a few. A socialist plan of production could shift away from fossil fuels without making working-class and poor people around the world pay for the ravages of climate change.
Join the Socialists!
What can we, as individuals do? Well, if you aren’t already a member, join the Socialist Party; itself a member of the worldwide socialist organisation the Committee for a Workers’ International. Join us in fighting for the socialist transformation of society under democratic workers’ control. Billionaires may look to Mars, but we look to each other and only together can we solve the problems inherited from the chaotic capitalist system. We fight for a system where the working class of all countries can work together to improve the conditions under which we all work and live.
