To: Detroit/Seattle
Workers' Voice mailing list
April 22, 2022
by Joseph Green, Detroit/Seattle Workers’ Voice list
Earth Day 2022 comes at a time when it is already too late to prevent climate change from doing major damage to the world. Here is how The Guardian characterizes what the UN’s climate science group, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), says in its recently released Sixth Assessment report: “Even if the world manages to limit warning to 1.5 C, some long-term impacts of warming are likely to be inevitable and irreversible.” (1) Inevitable! That means, it is going to take place no matter what is done from now on. Irreversible! That means even if later action is able to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, some tipping points to disaster will already have been passed.
This doesn’t mean that we should give up the struggle for drastic
cuts in carbon emissions. It is vital to limit the extent of the
catastrophe that is already beginning, even though droughts, floods,
heat waves, and species extinctions are already taking place. But we
also have to prepare for harsh times in the future. It’s
necessary for the environmental movement to ponder major changes
in its demands and methods.
Millions upon millions of people have come out onto the streets demanding that the governments and ruling classes take effective measures to protect the environment. Greta Thunberg, speaking as the voice of a huge global movement, has denounced the politicians, the government leaders, and the UN officials for spouting “blah-blah-blah” while letting the situation deteriorate. The mass struggle for drastic cuts in carbon emissions has to continue. But so far, the movement is mainly united around the need for action, rather than the type of action that needs to be taken. The time is getting closer when the environmental movement is going to have to look more closely at what is needed. It is going to have to fight for radical change in how the economy is run, and it is going to have to ask where is the class force that really wants these changes.
The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment report has been released in pieces from August 2021 to April 4 this year. And then, in the following week, 1,000 scientists in over two dozen countries took part in protests organized by the organization Scientist Rebellion under the slogan “1.5 C is dead, climate revolution is now!” to demand action to deal with the situation described by the IPCC. (2) They’re worried, and rightly so.
The Guardian writes that the IPCC report says that “Greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025, and can be nearly halved this decade, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to give the world a chance of limiting future heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.” Even if the 1.5C limit is achieved, we are likely to see “sea level rises, the melting of Arctic ice, and the warming and acidification of the oceans. Drastic reductions in emissions can stave off worse climate changes, … but will not return the world to the more moderate weather patterns of the past.” (3) And IPCC predictions are generally conservative — only the most certain consequences of global warming are mentioned.
But it’s unlikely that greenhouse gas emissions will peak by 2025, and that they will be halved by the end of the decade. Greenhouse emissions have kept going up, the effect on the world economy of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is likely to stall climate action, the climate denialists may well win the next elections and dominate American politics for a number of years, and the measures taken by most governments in the name of environmentalism will be either half-measures or even fraudulent. Technology keeps improving, but the world’s economies keep being directed towards maximum profit-making rather than making the changes needed to protect the environment and providing for people’s needs. Indeed, UN head Antonio Guterres himself says that “Some government and business leaders are saying one thing-but doing another. Simply put, they are lying. And the results will be catastrophic.” (4)
The IPCC, despite everything, tries to be optimistic and say that the various goals can be achieved. That’s what UN bodies do. Still, the IPCC does warn that, the way things are going, it seems that temperatures may soar more than 3 degrees C, with disastrous consequences.
But however careful the IPCC is to get the climate science right, and no matter how strident some of its words appear, its recommendations about what is to be done are based on what’s acceptable to the 195 member governments of the UN. (5) It can say things like that all sectors of the economy must change “dramatically and rapidly”, but that’s not what its recommendations amount to. When one looks concretely at what it is asking for, and at what it assumes will continue as always, its recommendations are based on the idea that nothing serious changes in the world economy, and it even relies on technology that isn’t yet certain. (6) In fact the IPCC tries to wheedle the governments and corporations of the world into action by promising that the needed changes won’t really upset the world economy very much. According to The Guardian, the IPCC report claims that the “the final cost of doing so [keeping global warming under 1.5 C] will be minimal, amounting to just a few percent of global GDP by mid-century, though it will require a massive effort by governments, businesses and individuals.” (7)
In fact, major changes will be needed in the very structure of the world economy to accomplish this, and to handle the damage that is already inevitable. All parts of the economy are going to have to change. The infrastructure is going to have to be rebuilt in order to allow the cutting of carbon emissions, in order to house environmental refugees, and in order to allow farming to proceed under new conditions. And that’s to say nothing about the possible need to replace coastal cities that face being drowned in the future.
Moreover, it isn’t just or even mainly that more money is going to have to be allocated than the IPCC’s projected few percent of the GDP. It’s first and foremost the structure of the economy that is going to need change. Market fundamentalism is going to have to be abolished. Material planning, not financial planning, is going to have to become more and more dominant. Self-regulation of environmental measures is going to have to be replaced by government regulation, and by workers themselves having an active role in overseeing how products are produced. The control of the governments by the worst polluters is going to have to be ended. And the livelihood of the entire population is going to have to be protected alongside the protection of the environment. I outlined some of the measures needed to accomplish this in an article “The coming of the environmental crisis” back in 2007 (http://www.communistvoice.org/39cKyoto.html). These are not just technical measures, but require, if they are to be successful, the development of a working class environmental movement alongside a powerful independent working class political movement.
The COVID pandemic has shown some of the problems that will occur as the climate crisis deepens. First of all, it hit rapidly, and it couldn’t be stopped by just diverting some emergency funds to dealing with it. Instead it has affected every aspect of a country’s life. It has been a test of whether a country could provide medical care for everyone, whether it had stockpiled sufficient medical supplies, whether the schooling of children could continue, of what would happen to public transportation, and even of whether production could continue safely. And the present economies, profit-run as they are, have failed the test. The COVID crisis has increased the inequality inside countries; it has put working people around the world under strain; no serious changes have been made in how the economy operates. Not even the greed of the pharmaceutical companies has been challenged.
As well, thanks to the COVID crisis, there has been a major disruption of world supply lines, resulting in shortages. The invasion of Ukraine is similarly resulting in a disruption of world grain supply, threatening the increase of hunger in many parts of the world. Something similar is going to happen as climate disasters come more frequently, devastate crops, destroy roads, hit port cities , throw workers out of essential jobs, and otherwise disrupt trade. Countries, and even regions in a country, are going to need to be prepared to produce what they need during emergencies. Emergency planning can no longer be regarded as simply putting aside enough money to cover expenses. There will have to be material planning, because supplies from elsewhere may not be available at any price.
At least technical knowledge has been growing rapidly in the last decades. Unfortunately, the monopolization of this knowledge has intensified. The lack of technical knowledge has held various countries back from producing their own vaccines when buying them became impossible for poor and middle-income countries. Similarly, as other major crises hit, all sorts of knowledge may become impossible to obtain, as companies, research institutions, schools, and libraries collapse, as the present form of the internet collapses, and other disruptions take place. It will be too late to wait until then to abolish commercial secrecy and make technological and scientific knowledge into the real property of humanity as a whole. There needs to be concern now over how to ensure that vitally needed knowledge is preserved. Aside from strengthening the present institutions, there should also be the development of a series of universal libraries around the world, each holding as much as possible of the world’s scientific and technical knowledge, but also preserving literature and art and the history of humanity, and designed to withstand the worst disasters.
Aside from the protest of the scientists, there has been little
reaction so far to the IPCC report. What’s needed is not only more
protests, but reconsidering what’s needed based on the fact that
major environmental damage is already inevitable. Market fundamentalism
can’t deal with the environmental crisis, nor can dictatorial forms of
government control. The market measures, cap and trade plans, carbon
taxes, and financial incentives that have been used to prod the
capitalists to carry out environmental reform have failed. The
environmental movement has united millions with the demand for serious
and effective measures. It is facing, however, the need to not
only keep denouncing the present world leaders, but to spread awareness
of what economic changes will be needed to actually have real action.
And it is faced with becoming the working-class based force that will
be willing to fight for those changes.
(1) Fiona Harvey, “Major climate changes inevitable and irreversible - IPCC’s starkest warning yet”, August 9, 2021, The Guardian.
(2) Margaret Osborne, “Scientists Stage Worldwide Climate Change Protests After IPCC Report”, April 13, 20222, The Smithsonian Magazine,
. Also Scientist Rebellion, “Largest Civil Disobedience Campaign by
Scientists in History: Over 1,000 Scientists Taking Action Across the
Globe”.
(3) Fiona Harvey, Ibid.
(4) Fiona Harvey, “IPCC report: ‘now or never’ if world is to stave off climate disaster”, April 4, 2022, The Guardian.
(5) IPCC press release, “The evidence is clear: the time for action is now. We can halve emissions by 2030”.
It states, among other things that “The Summary for Policymakers of the
IPCC Working Group III rSceport, Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of
climate change was approved on April 4 2022, by 195 member governments
of the IPCC, through a virtual approval session that started on March
21.” Far from this meaning that these governments are committed to
action, it means that they have ensured that the IPCC recommendations
will be toothless.
(6) Ibid., Fiona Harvey, “IPCC report: ‘now or never’”. It says “All sectors of the global economy, from energy and transport to buildings and food, must change dramatically and rapidly, and new technologies including hydrogen fuel and carbon capture and storage will be needed.” It also has no answer to how to provide accurate carbon emission statistics in the face of corporate and governmental lying; it does not provide for transparency in environmental regulation; and it does not provide for the necessary changes in government operations. If it did, the outraged UN member governments would eliminate the IPCC.
(7) Ibid. <>
Picture: Scientist Rebellion demonstrations took place around the world.
Back to main
page,
how to order CV,
write us!