The world suffers from populations being displaced because of drought and storms and floods.

Capitalists worship quick and easy profit. There is no amount of wealth, no amount of profit, and no amount of market-share that is either ‘enough’ or ‘too much.

 Because capitalism is the chief contributor to increasing climate change, the answer must be anti-capitalist and on that account, socialist. Humanity’s best chance of survival lies with world socialism. Those concerned about the climate crisis should understand that half measures aren’t sufficient solutions. A fundamental transformation of society as a whole is required. Green goals cannot be reconciled with a capitalist economy. An ecological steady-state between society and nature is incompatible with capitalism’s insatiable compulsion to grow. As long as environmentalists hold true to their aims they will always come up against capitalism’s barriers, thwarting their realisation. Campaigners cannot downplay or oppose anti-capitalism and should welcome and be receptive to socialist ideas. The conservative-minded politicians to stay electable have hi-jacked the environmentalist platform, sweeping this unpalatable truth under the rug, to win credibility with both the voters and their donors. Corporate values permeate all the major institutions of government.

The socialist analysis has been marginalised, discredited and unable to enter into the mainstream environmentalist debate. Our case for a sustainable society has been rejected and excluded from the scientific discourse. The World Socialist Movement not just explains the economic processes leading to environmental destruction, but also offers the strategy to change them. A  critique of capitalism is essential to challenge the current environmental crisis. The market promotes its own logic of production that facing competition from other producers, each business must minimise or externalise its costs while maximising returns and market share so to implement expensive environmental policies, they either sacrifice profit or lose market share to the competitor who can under-cut at a cheaper price in the marketplace. Any environmental protection is a cost in the commercial ledger which must be minimised. This fact operates independently of the personal views or ethics of owners or CEOs. The competitive market inevitably impedes any voluntary “green” initiatives.

Eco-activists can no longer adopt traditional conventional views of the market’s impact upon the climate issue by merely re-stating that the market is the central essence of modern society and thus sacrosanct. The response must now be the demand for a new economic system to supplant capitalism, to place the blame for environmental destruction back on the capitalist culprit, to direct attention to the institutions most responsible for the damage to our world. 

This system cannot be reformed at it is based on the destruction of the earth and the exploitation of the people. There is no such thing as green capitalism, a PR advertising product that will not bring back the ecosystems that capitalism must destroy to make its profits. Ecologists must be revolutionaries.

One of the building blocks of socialism is “production for use, not for profit,” “production for need, not for greed.” Therefore, the imbalance is not built into socialism as it is under capitalism.  Socialism would mean organising human societies much in the manner the way that nature is organised. Capitalism robs us of community with each other and harmony with the Earth. Capitalism could be totally race and gender blind, indifferent to sexual preference, run by a government free of bureaucratic state officials, and there would still be an environmental crisis. Capitalism harms the environment because it is what it is.

While the World Socialist Movement can engage in a healthy discussion of how we should define and re-assess our ideas of the “good life”, accepting some degree of decreased consumerism in Western cultures, we also maintain that a convincing ecological future must put forth a credible vision of abundance. Technology is the beast of the system that controls it and when it is used to oppress, it is by choice of the ruling class. New technology is not the threat, the capitalist class is. Technology is a potential source of prosperity. Most of the people in this world need more – not less — access to the benefits of technology.  Placing the blame for the climate crisis on technology masks the real cause of the emergency. The poisoning of the environment, the destruction of the forests and the extinction of species and the elimination of traditional forms of farming agriculture are propelled by class rule. 

 As humanity has evolved, it has had to alter the natural landscape around it. Even hunter-gatherer societies have had a profound effect on their immediate surroundings. For instance, the stark heather moors of the Scottish Highlands were once the thickly wooded Caledonian Forest.

The central climate question is not about renewable technology. Instead, it’s all about economics and politics. Increasingly numbers of studies and reports reflect the scientific consensus that we have to drastically cut CO2 emissions, and that is not happening sufficiently or soon enough. Demonstrations and protests by activists in the streets to pressure government action are good, but not enough. Greenhouse gas emissions remain a serious threat to mankind and capitalist society declines to slam on the brakes. While ecological necessity seeks a sound sustainable system, the commodified exchange economy needs growth. 

Partial reforms can be fought for and some will be won. Such campaigns pit the people against powerful capitalist interests, and can lead to the understanding that the system itself must be changed, echoing a slogan that has become increasing heard within the environmental movement: ‘System Change, Not Climate Change’.

Many activists accept the idea that much of our environmental problems are due to humanity itself. They have chosen to call today’s times, the Anthropocene epoch, differing from previous eras being referred to by more appropriate names such as Stone,  Bronze, Iron Industrial Ages. Now it is blame-the-people and not use a more relevant term, capitalocene, to describe the state of our world.

Hunger around the world is not attributed to the type of our economic system being based upon production for profit but, rather, because the population is growing too quickly claims Paul Ehrlich or according to Garrett Hardin, our age-old culture and tradition of sharing the land and water in common, does not work:  

1. Modern high-tech intensive agriculture has not eliminated hunger.

 

2. It undermines its own productive base through erosion, disappearing soil fertility and increased salinisation, shortage of water sources and depletion of diversity.

 

3. It changes land-use patterns, encouraging deforestation, draining wetlands and planting crops according to market criteria even in unsuitable climates. It promotes a loss of crop diversity by specialisation and commercial seed production and reduces overall biodiversity through its chemical inputs and extensive monocultures.

 

4. It increases vulnerability to nature, especially to climate and microclimate change, pest outbreaks and atmospheric and water pollutants. This is because of large scale monoculture, the selection of varieties for maximum yield under optimal conditions and the loss of beneficial fauna and flora.

 

5. It makes farming increasingly dependent on inputs from off the farm. This means that cash flow becomes increasingly important as fertilisers replace natural nitrogen fixers, irrigation replaces the broken hydrological flows and storage of water, and also because pesticides replace natural enemies of pests and hybrid seeds must be bought. Dependence on external inputs increases the vulnerability to price instability and politically motivated trade policies.

 

6. It debases food quality as regional specialisation increases storage and transport time and crops and techniques are chosen for quantitative yield. Specialisation makes even farmers dependent on buying food.

 

7. It increases the gap between rich and poor. The rich are able to buy or get credit to buy, the new inputs, establish the marketing connections and average their returns across years. The poor, however, need to be successful every year. Modern agriculture especially undermines the economic independence and empowerment of women. The new technologies are usually given to men, even in places where women traditionally do most of the farming. The new technologies make the domestic chores of women, such as gathering firewood and fetching water, more time-consuming. Women’s diverse activities in the home conflict with the extreme seasonality of commercial monoculture.

 

8. It poisons people, first the farmworkers who handle pesticides, then their family members who handle the pesticide soaked clothing and drink water where pesticides and fertilisers have run into groundwater. Finally, it reaches those who eat the crops produced with pesticides and animals raised with antibiotics and growth hormones.

 

9. It also poisons other species, and the environment as a whole such as our waterways from fertiliser run–off, accumulation of pesticides in the body tissues of fish and birds.

Despite its technical complexity, modern agricultural technology has a narrow intellectual base susceptible to surprise. The final conclusion, therefore, is that commercialised, export–oriented, chemical-heavy agriculture is non-sustainable.

Only with world socialism will the benefits of science be given to all of the people of the world. Human society, when we get it, will be a free association of social individuals.

 The energy charter treaty (ECT) is an international agreement that allows energy corporations to sue governments over policies that could hurt their profits. Signed in 1994, the treaty was intended to protect western companies investing in the oil- and gas-rich countries of the former Soviet Union. Only foreign investors, rather than domestic ones, can use the system, prompting longstanding complaints of privileged access. Campaigners now fear it could stymie the green transition.

Coal and oil investors are already suing governments for several billions in compensation for lost profits over energy policy changes. For example, the German energy company RWE is sueing the Netherlands for €1.4bn (£1.2bn) over its plans to phase out coal. Another German utility, Uniper, is reported to be seeking between €850m and €1bn for the early closure of its Maasvlakte coal-fired power plant near Rotterdam.  While Rockhopper Exploration, based in the UK, is sueing the Italian government after it banned new drilling near the coast.

“It’s a real threat. It’s the biggest threat I am aware of,” said Yamina Saheb, a former employee of the ECT secretariat. She has estimated that foreign investors could sue governments for €1.3tn until 2050 in compensation for early closure of coal, oil and gas plants – a sum that exceeds what the EU hopes to spend on its green deal in the next decade. As compensation to companies is paid by public funds, governments would have less money to pay for new technology to make buildings, transport and industry greener. Saheb argued these payments could endanger the green transition. 

Analysis of the treaty showed a 269% increase in cases in 2011-20 compared with the previous decade. “We are going to see in future many more cases,” said Lucía Bárcena, of the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute, who compiled the data. Since 2013, two-thirds of the cases have been brought against western European governments.

“The energy charter treaty … has no cohesion at all with EU climate policies,” Bárcena said. “Trade and investment agreements are binding on states, which means if they break the contract then they have to pay huge amounts of money, while there is no other mechanism that binds countries to the goals that they are setting at Cop26.”

 Cornelia Maarfield, a senior trade and investment policy coordinator at the Climate Action Network Europe, explained, “Our main concern is that once governments start taking decisions to phase out coal, gas and oil, they will run into difficulties with the investment protection chapter of this agreement.”

Investors are known to have filed 142 cases against governments since the ECT came into force in 1998. But these are only the known cases. Even the ECT’s Brussels-based secretariat acknowledges it does not have a complete picture, because investors are not obliged to reveal legal action under the ECT.

Saheb argues the treaty is beyond reform because central Asian member states will veto any weakening of protection for fossil fuels. “The EU countries should withdraw altogether as one,” she said. “If we withdraw altogether we could agree to cancel this clause and then we could move on with our energy transition.”

Secretive court system poses threat to Paris climate deal, says whistleblower | Energy | The Guardian

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, warned that surging losses of land and income will drive growing migration with “people trying to get to places where they can have more security”.

“Climate refugees are already part of the flow of people moving outside of Africa – and the numbers are going up,” she said.

So far, global pledges to reduce emissions add up to between a third and two-thirds of what is needed to stay below 2 degrees Celsius of warming, the less-ambitious aim of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, she said. That is translating into swiftly rising costs to adapt to extreme weather and higher seas, with

Shifting course would require global financial changes to drive emissions cuts, Georgieva said – from ending an annual $600 billion in direct fossil fuel subsidies to more countries putting a price on carbon to ensure the costs of climate damage are factored into products. Huge amounts more private investment are also required to boost clean energy, strengthen climate resilience and other needed changes, she said. Last year, climate-related investment rose by 50% globally – but still amounted to only a quarter of 1% of a total $49 trillion in investment funds, she said.

 The U.N. Environment Programme estimating $140 billion-$300 billion will be needed annually by 2030 for developing nations to cope with impacts. 

At least $30 billion-$50 billion of that is needed just for sub-Saharan Africa, according to IMF estimates, Georgieva said.

Sea level rise and worsening floods are already costing $3.8 billion a year in West Africa, with total losses across the continent running at about $7-8 billion a year, said Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank Group. That includes $2 billion in damage in southern Africa from cyclones in recent years, as well as losses of a million hectares of crops to locusts and other damage from floods in East Africa and more land becoming desert in the Sahel, he said.

President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the current head of the African Union, said finding funding to help Africa cope with the rising harm was crucial. “The fight against climate change cannot be won unless it is won in Africa,” he told an event on accelerating African adaptation at COP26.

Georgieva urged all countries to act as fast as possible to tackle climate threats and speed up efforts to reduce emissions. 

“Rich countries have to do more, emerging markets have to do more, poor countries have to be helped to do more,” she said. “If we don’t take charge of our own destiny in this decade, it doesn’t matter how beautiful our plans for 2050 are – they will not materialise,” she added.

IMF head says faster emissions cuts can curb big adaptation needs (trust.org)

“Nature-based solutions” are popular answers as a means of fighting climate change while protecting biodiversity. One technique is familiar: planting trees, the original “carbon capture hubs”. They absorb atmospheric CO2 while boosting wildlife habitats — critical to stemming biodiversity loss and protecting against flooding and soil erosion.

But experts say that reforestation, while essential, is far from a silver bullet against climate crises. Experts say nature-based solutions are important but not enough in themselves.  Trees take time to grow and, when trying to lock away carbon indefinitely, they remain vulnerable to logging, land clearance or wildfires fuelled by a deteriorating climate. Scientists worry too about the huge land and water requirements for this tree-planting tactic.

Two of the world’s biggest fossil-fuel producers, Russia and Saudi Arabia, have promised in recent weeks to go carbon neutral by 2060. Both Moscow and Riyadh plan to offset much of their carbon emissions from fossil fuels by planting millions of trees.  And they are not alone. Boris Johnson wants to make tree planting a priority.  Planting trees and expanding green spaces are not new ideas

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which coined the term, defines nature-based solutions as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural and modified ecosystems”. 

Protecting and expanding forests is central to this approach.

“Forests, and in particular tropical forests, absorb about a third of the greenhouse gases emitted every year,” explained Anne Larigauderie, executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which works with the UN on protecting biodiversity. “They could do much more if we stopped deforestation and invested more in forest management and the protection of these ecosystems.”

Mangrove restoration is often cited as a key example, as these unique ecosystems act as natural barriers against coastal erosion and flooding. 

Simply planting trees, though, isn’t enough. 

For all the promise they hold, nature-based solutions should not be seen as a miracle cure for the climate. The natural world constantly shifts and evolves, and researchers must adapt accordingly. Planting along shores and waterways, for example, has its limits.

“While we’ve mastered the design methods for civil engineering based on mechanical and physical properties, the same isn’t true for plant engineering, which brings into play living materials whose properties are much harder to control,” said André Evette at France’s National Institute of Agronomic Research.

Friends of the Earth fear that nature-based solutions can “disguise climate-trashing business as usual”. 

“Under the guise of Nature Based Solutions, big business and governments continue to expand … industrial agriculture and fossil fuel extraction, while claiming to address their climate impacts through investment in activities such as mass tree planting,” Friends of the Earth wrote.

Larigauderie likewise also warns against putting too much stake in it.

“Nature will not be able to absorb a frantic increase in our consumption,” she cautioned. “The number one message is that we must reduce our energy consumption, and rethink our lifestyles and agriculture. Nature can do a lot for us, but we must also correct ourselves.”  

Why planting trees is no silver bullet against climate change (france24.com)

 Following the example of China’s Xi Jinping in advocating “common prosperity”, the Japanese Prime Minister Fumip Kishida promises to bring a redistribution of wealth by a policy described as “new capitalism”.

Kishida said he believes a more equal distribution of wealth is needed to prevent the world’s third-largest economy from sinking into stagnation.

“I’ll be seeking to bring about a new form of capitalism that creates a virtuous cycle of growth and wider wealth distribution.” Japan’s new Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said.

“We don’t know for sure what he plans to do, but we know his approach will not be that different from ‘Abenomics,’ ” said Hideaki Tanaka, a professor of public policy at Meiji University in Tokyo.

“When the ruling party picked Kishida, they were voting for the status quo,” said economist Masamichi Adachi at UBS Securities. “I have my doubts about what they’re pitching as new policies.” 

It sounded a lot like Abenomics in a slightly different language. 

He announced plans to tax profits on investments, part of his promised effort to distribute wealth more evenly in the country. He has since back-track on his “new capitalism” tax, when the stock market slumped, saying he would hold off until Japan’s economy is stronger. 

Although the Bank of Japan’s bond-buying and aggressive monetary easing has been criticized in some corners as widening the wealth gap because it rewards stock owners so heavily,  the administration wants the bank to stay the course.

He now says he will drive growth by cutting corporate taxes — which Abe also did — in the classic “trickle-down” strategy of encouraging companies to raise wages. That approach failed, however, as companies hoarded their earnings. Instead, a growing share of workers are employed part-time or on contracts that don’t provide full benefits. 

Despite the Nikkei tripling in value in the last 10 years, Japan’s average wages remain among the lowest of the G7 nations, at $38,500 a year compared to $69,400 in the US. Although the disparity of wealth is greater statistically in the U.S. than in Japan, Americans have access to more generous social welfare programs. That means poverty is a growing problem in Japan, especially among single mothers struggling to make a living wage.

 The World Meteorological Organisation in its ‘The State of the Climate report for 2021′ highlights a world that is “changing before our eyes” where extreme weather events – including powerful heat waves and devastating floods – are now the new normal.

The study finds that the past seven years including this one are likely to be the warmest on record as greenhouse gases reached record concentrations in the atmosphere. The accompanying rise in temperatures is propelling the planet into “uncharted territory” says the report, with increasing impacts across the planet.

 While the G-20 at its Rome conference agreed to a minimum tax rate for the global corporations of 15%, something they all still have to get passed through their individual parliaments, (and in the case of Biden, with his present budget impasse, that is unlikely),  Shell and BP, have not paid any corporation tax on oil and gas production in the North Sea for the last three years by benefiting from billions of pounds of tax breaks and reliefs for oil and gas production.

Shell and BP paid no corporation tax or production levies on North Sea oil operations between 2018 and 2020, and claimed tax rebates of nearly £400m.  Over the same three-year period, they paid shareholders more than £44bn in dividends.

Shell and BP, which together produce more than 1.7bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year and have an annual global footprint of greenhouse gases more than five times bigger than Britain’s.

The North Sea is now one of the most profitable areas in the world for oil and gas production, after tax cuts by the government to encourage production. A petroleum revenue tax of 35% was effectively scrapped by the then chancellor, George Osborne, in 2016 and oil giants can claim billions of pounds in taxpayer handouts for decommissioning rigs. There are about 180 oil rigs in the North Sea. The UK Treasury will foot a bill of more than £18bn for the decommissioning of the oil and gas infrastructure in the North Sea up to 2065 – made up of tax repayments and a reduction in offshore corporation tax.

Philip Evans, oil and gas campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: “It’s outrageous that as the UK prepares to host global climate talks in Glasgow, we still have one of the lowest effective tax rates in the world for oil extraction. We’re giving tax breaks worth billions of pounds to companies that have been fuelling the climate emergency for decades.”

The UK has some of the lowest oil tax rates in the world. An analysis found the UK is now the most profitable country in the world for the development of oil and gas “mega-projects”. A report published last week by Friends of the Earth and the New Economics Foundation found that the oil and gas industry is preparing to seek approval for 30 offshore projects by 2025.

Gabrielle Jeliazkov, a campaigner at Platform, a UK group that investigates the social and environmental effects of the global oil industry and is supporting the legal case, said: “The government has spent too long backing oil giants through tax breaks and subsidies. It has had devastating consequences for the climate.”

Shell and BP paid zero tax on North Sea gas and oil for three years | Oil and gas companies | The Guardian

William Hawes begins his essay “Capitalism is Not Your Friend” on the Dissident Voice website with a reminder of what Malcolm X said about reformism:

“If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven’t pulled the knife out, much less healed the wound. They won’t even admit the knife is there.”

Hawes in his article makes some pertinent points about the capitalist system.

1) Capitalism Is Unsustainable

2) Capitalism Creates Unjustifiable Hierarchies

3) Capitalism Is Inherently Exploitative and Alienating

4) Capitalism Is Extremely Volatile

Conclusion: Capitalism Can’t Deliver the Goods

Capitalism is Not Your Friend | Dissident Voice

Oman has just been battered by Cyclone Shaheen, the first tropical cyclone to make it that far west into the Gulf of Arabia. 

Around Basra in southern Iraq this summer, pressure on the grid owing to 50C heat led to constant blackouts, with residents driving around in their cars to stay cool. 

Kuwait broke the record for the hottest day ever in 2016 at 53.6, and its 10-day rolling average this summer was equally sweltering. 

Flash floods occurred in the Saudi city of Jeddah, and more recently Mecca, while across Saudi Arabia average temperatures have increased by 2%, and the maximum temperatures by 2.5%, all just since the 1980s.  By the end of the century, if the more dire predictions prove true, Mecca may not be habitable

In Qatar, the country with the highest per capita carbon emissions in the world and the biggest producer of liquid gas, the outdoors is already being air-conditioned. 

In Tehran, Iran, air pollution kills 4,000 people each year, while in the south-west province of Khuzestan citizens blocked roads and burned tyres to protest against droughts caused by a combination of mismanagement, western sanctions and killer heat. 

In the United Arab Emirates, it is estimated that the climate crisis costs £6bn a year in higher health costs. 

Iran is now the seventh-largest carbon emitter per capita, the UAE the second largest and Saudi Arabia the 13th.

The salinity of the Arabian Gulf, caused by proliferating desalination plants, has increased by 20%, with all the likely impact on marine life and biodiversity.

Large tracts of the Middle East may be with no permanent human settlement.

The Gulf coastal cities by the end of the century could find themselves inundated as waters rise.

The Middle East is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. It has to find a way to avoid its self-destruction

Jim Krane, an energy research analyst at Rice University Baker Institute in Houston, said:

 “It is a really tough issue because the interests of the ruling elites run contrary to the interests of citizens. The ruling elites are all dependent on oil rents for the survival of their regimes. They need the oil business to stay alive for them to stay in power. Their system is based on continued oil rent, but ultimately, the citizens’ long-term interests are with a liveable climate”.

Zeina Khalil Hajj, a founder of Greenpeace in the Middle East, says that the region is under a double squeeze. “As demand for energy changes, a region that has been fundamentally reliant on fossil fuel, oil and carbon for its economic survival cannot continue with this dependence. There will be no market for their oil. But as its climate changes, it has an extra duty to shift for its own survival. Extreme weather is changing the lives of the people at a daily level. There is no choice, but to go green.”

Hajj says it may require a rapid psychological shift away from consumerism. “The Gulf is not even close to that kind of conversation. If you see the lifestyle in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, it is based on endless consumption. My fear is that we are so far away from it both in terms of policy and willingness”.

The region has all three elements needed to switch to renewables: capital, sun and large tracts of vacant land. But until recently there were few signs that the petro-states felt the need to get out of fossil fuels.

Saudi energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, famously described it as a sequel to La La Land. “If I had to be concerned with IEA projections,” Abdulaziz said in Abu Dhabi during a public forum at the 24th World Energy Congress in 2019, “I probably would be on Prozac all the time.”

The Qatari energy minister, Saad al-Kaabi, said cutting off oil and gas production would cause damaging supply crunches, and laughed at “the euphoria around energy transition”.

Oil and gas exports remain more than 70% of total goods exports in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman.  Oil revenues exceed 70% of total government revenues in Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain. The World Bank shows Saudi Arabia is still 75% dependent on oil exports for its budget.

Aramco, the Saudi company with the largest carbon footprint in the world, is not trying to diversify at the rate of many other oil corporations. Indeed, it has just announced an investment to increase crude capacity from 12m barrels a day to 13m barrels by 2027.

 Fossil fuels shipped abroad are not on the Saudi’s carbon ledger, owing to UN accounting rules. The region is responsible for only 4.7 % of worldwide carbon emissions, dwarfed by the pollution from Europe, America and China. The oil that the Middle East exports is logged against the carbon emissions of the users, not the producers.

 And the promised internal reduction in emissions is dependent on a heavy bet that unproven blue hydrogen and carbon capture technology will work. Greenpeace Middle East suggested the Saudis’ plan included increasing oil production.

One reason the Gulf sheikdoms have been able to be so slow in weaning themselves off the commodity that made them rich is that the wealth has been used to numb public opinion. Citizens have been bought off through a mixture of no taxes, along with water, petrol and energy subsidies.

‘Apocalypse soon’: reluctant Middle East forced to open eyes to climate crisis | Climate crisis | The Guardian