Hannah Ponting, Liverpool north Socialist Party
It is no secret that the world has been in an environmental crisis for years now, and this crisis is only accelerating. The internationally agreed target of 1.5°C warming from preindustrial levels, viewed by climate scientists as necessary to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, looks more and more out of reach.
A recent World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) report has outlined a number of worrying possibilities, including an 80% chance that global temperatures will break at least one annual heat record in the next five years and, crucially, that there is a chance of a year being 2°C hotter than the preindustrial era, before 2030.
Glaciers under threat
These changes will undoubtedly have an effect worldwide. 40% of glaciers are already beyond saving and are therefore doomed to melt. This will affect the billions of people reliant on glaciers to regulate the water used to grow food. As well as this, glacier losses are certain to devastate downstream communities, as well as harming regions that rely on glacial tourism to sustain themselves.
However, despite these worrying figures, the capitalist system continues to demonstrate its willingness to prioritise profit above all else, including the environment and the wellbeing of us all. We have seen the continued funding of ongoing war and genocide across the world, while cuts to public services take money from those most vulnerable.
We need socialist change
While many may still hold onto the hope that international agreements can form the basis for resolving the climate crisis, Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement in 2020 clearly demonstrates that capitalist leaders are more than willing to set aside internationally agreed climate legislation in favour of pursuing their own national interests.
The evidence is clear: capitalism, driven by competition and profit, is fundamentally incompatible with the coordinated, long-term planning required to address the climate crisis. In order to properly combat this crisis we need a socialist plan of production. By taking into public ownership the big businesses and banks, including the polluting oil and gas and energy companies, we would be able to transition away from fossil fuels without workers paying the price. Environmental concerns could be integrated into plans of production democratically decided by workers across the world, to deal with capitalist climate chaos’s effects and reverse polluting production.
