How to Combat the Climate Crisis
Aleida May
What is Climate Change and how does it affect us?
Climate change is any change in the climate, lasting for several decades or longer, including changes in temperature, rainfall or wind patterns. Climate change is caused by the excessive amount of greenhouse gases entering the Earth’s atmosphere due to human activity.
There is no safe level of global warming. Already, at a global average temperature rise of 1.1°C, we’re experiencing more powerful storms, destructive marine and land heatwaves, and a new age of mega-fires. These extremes and their risks are likely to escalate as global temperatures continue to rise and our capacity to respond becomes compromised as the frequency increases. Multiple lines of evidence strongly suggest that we can no longer limit warming to 1.5°C and that the global average temperature will exceed this mark during the 2030s. Should temperatures spike above 1.5°C for a significant period, this will lead to irreversible and severely life- threatening chaos & destruction. Additionally, this will significantly increase the risk of triggering abrupt, dangerous and irreversible changes to the climate.
Every fraction of a degree of avoided warming matters, and will be measured in lives, species and ecosystems saved. We must do everything possible to deeply and rapidly cut our emissions as soon as possible, while also preparing for climate impacts that can no longer be avoided [1].
If we manage to succeed in keeping global temperature increase less than 1.5°C, which is an unlikely best-case scenario, there will still be much damage done to the planet and the working class will suffer from these consequences disproportionately. While increases in global temperature by over 1.5°C are undoubtedly worse for us, the consequences of climate change on all scales are still negative. We must not settle for anything less than emitting the least amount of greenhouse gas emissions possible and increasing the number of resources in our public sector to combat the effects of climate change.
The Climate Catastrophe is here and is already affecting real people right now. This past month under the current circumstances of a 1.1°C global average temperature rise, in Pakistan, as many as 33 million people have been affected, 100,000 displaced from their homes, 1200 health facilities now underwater and at least 1,325 dead, including 466 children. Pakistan has received nearly 190 percent more rain than the 30-year average in July-August, Sindh province, with a population of 50 million, has been the hardest hit, getting 466% more rain than the 30-year average. With yet more rain expected in the coming month, the situation could worsen still further, a top official of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) warned [2]. While we must act now to prevent the climate catastrophe from getting any worse by reducing our emissions, we must also make sure to actively support the current victims of climate change both nationally and internationally.
Climate change is currently affecting millions of people already and at the current rate, we are likely to exceed 1.5°C global warming, this means the effects of climate change are set to go from bad to worse. A global warming increase of 2°C instead of 1.5°C will increase the number of people both exposed to climate-related risks and susceptible to poverty by up to several hundred million by 2050. It’s worth noting that although the jump from 1.5°C to 2°C may not sound hugely significant, at 1.5°C or higher there are much higher risks and severe impacts, the increasing presence of significant irreversible damage, more persistence and severe climate- related hazards (i.e. longer and larger floods and droughts), combined with a more limited ability to adapt due to the nature of the hazard or impacts/risks.
We must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible given that the more emissions we have in the atmosphere the greater the damage done to the planet and, we need to provide material aid to people affected by this issue internationally and domestically. We need to provide a just transition for workers in mining and other industries contributing to the climate crisis whose jobs will be made redundant and we can do so through offering them as well other members of the community public sector jobs and skill training. We need more people working essential jobs in the public sector such as land and resource management, emergency services, public housing, healthcare, wildlife protection and more to protect the people and the environment from climate catastrophe.
What is causing climate change? What role does capitalism play? And what can be done to combat it?
Climate change is being caused by the excessive amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Capitalism incentivises companies to continue polluting as, to capitalists, pursuing profits is worth the severe threat climate change poses to ecosystems and the people who inhabit them.
Financial records show that major fossil fuel businesses globally enjoyed $93.3bn in profits in the first quarter of 2022. In 2021, the 28 largest oil and gas companies made a combined $183.9bn in profits. In February (2021), Murray Auchincloss, BP’s chief financial officer, said “Certainly, it’s possible that we’re getting more cash than we know what to do with”. “The greed of these companies is staggering,” said Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power, an advocacy group. “We’ve heard their executives bragging about how much the agony of inflation and the tragedy of the war in Ukraine has allowed them to raise prices. These profits are going right into their pockets.” Meanwhile, this is happening in the middle of a climate crisis directly caused by the excessive extraction of fossil fuels for profit [3].
Capitalists are currently profiting from the destruction of the planet and we won't see real climate action take place until their profits are compromised. Their power in society needs to be broken and control of the economy handed to the people. This means fighting for socialism. Until socialism is achieved, profit will continue to be put before the environment. Capitalism can't ever be reformed to truly meet the needs of the working people.
We cannot afford to act passively. If we continue to seek climate justice through protesting, trying to make capitalism green, signing petitions and voting, the harsh truth is that there will be no systemic change. For peaceful protests to bring radical change, the ruling class would need a conscience we could appeal to – something it does not have. If they did we wouldn't be facing a climate catastrophe while the rich were rewarded with record-breaking profits. Capitalism will never go green and can never be reformed to serve the people, capitalism is a system designed to reap profits for the property-owning minority from the labour of the working masses – it is simply not designed to meet the needs of the people. Capitalists will never do the right thing unless it is proven profitable for them to do so. The fossil fuel industry is highly profitable due to our dependence on it as we must continue to purchase energy after the point of sale. Renewable energies on the other hand, such as solar panels are self-sustainable and continue to generate energy after the point of sale meaning that people who own renewable energy resources will not have to be dependent on capitalists for energy. In this way we can see that capitalism is currently incentivising the rich to perpetuate and worsen the climate crisis, capitalism does not meet the needs of the many but those of the few and it dictates that the economy run for profitability rather than to meet the needs of the working masses.
Over the past few years, the rise of climate action and peaceful climate strikes and protests have done a great job of raising awareness about the severity of climate change, and now more than ever the working people are waking up to the fact that we are in a climate emergency. However, these actions alone will not bring about real climate action – these forms of protest have been happening for years and we are still headed toward climate catastrophe. There is one solution to the climate crisis and that is revolution. Until capitalist interests are compromised and society is reorientated to meet the needs of the people, our system will continue to meet the desires of the few at the expense of the needs of the many. Simply put, profit will continue to be put before people.
Now that more and more working people are coming to understand the severity and urgency of the climate crisis, and that the issue has become mainstream, we must utilise this outrage, educate the working people on why this is happening and what can be done about it and then organise to take action. Now more than ever we need to organise our already enraged communities to engage in the revolutionary struggle for the sake of the future. We need to replace the capitalist state with a government run by and for the working people, where the economic needs of ordinary people and the environment are not neglected for the sake of profit for the few. If we fail to act now the disastrous consequences of climate change will intensify while we have a limited number of resources to combat the destruction it will bring upon communities.
Any system that allows people to profit from destroying the planet while the vast majority of people are suffering needs to be abolished. If you stand for real climate justice and the end of reckless environmental destruction, if you think it's high time that corporations and big businesses were removed from power and replaced by true working-class democracy, if you stand for the liberation of all peoples of the world, then you stand for nothing less than socialism. We understand socialism to be the state power of the working class, the abolition of private ownership in the means of production, a planned and centralised economy, the more direct involvement of workers in control of their workplaces and communities through new structures and progress leading to the creation of a Communist society (a classless, stateless & moneyless society).
We have let corporations exploit the labour of the working class for long enough, and now they're destroying the very planet we live on. It’s time to organise our communities to fight back against this disastrous capitalist system which is threatening the lives of our communities, other species and the environment. We need to fight back right now, we need to fight hard and we need to fight like our lives, the lives of future generations and the lives of other species depend on it – because they do. A better world is possible.
Members and supporters of the Australian Communist Party protesting for climate action.
Members and supporters of the Australian Communist Party protesting for climate action.
In light of the issue of Climate Change the Australian Communist Party presents the following demands to the Australian Government:
1. 100% publicly-owned renewable energy.
2. Net zero emissions no later than 2030 & no new gas, coal or oil (including exports).
3. Oppose anti-protest laws.
4. Land rights, not mining rights.
5. Listen to the best science currently available.
6. Provide material support to working people internationally.
7. Investigate alternative solutions.
8. Fund the above demands through the nationalisation of industry.
References:
[1] https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/aim-high-go-fast-why-emissions-must-plummet-climate-council-report-210421.pdf
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-06/flood-hit-pakistan-battles-to-avert-overflow-of- biggest-lake/101412416
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/13/oil-gas-producers-first-quarter- 2022-profit