The pollution the imperialist nations pour into the atmosphere is fuelling runaway global warming.
The average US citizen emits more carbon than 500 citizens of Ethiopia, Chad, Afghanistan, Mali, or Burundi.
And just 100 companies, mainly multinational corporations, are responsible for 71% of all emissions.
The growth in global carbon emissions has accelerated from 1% a year in the 1990s to 3% a year in the 2010s.
Even if the Paris Accord is honoured, annual CO2 emissions would rise from 50bn tonnes to 55-60bn tonnes by 2030.
Climate scientists say they must be cut by at least 36bn tonnes to avoid a catastrophic 2°C temperature rise on pre-industrial times, which we are on course to hit by 2050. A 3.5°C rise is considered to be ‘the extinction point’.
Meanwhile, the profit motive necessitates deforestation and the destruction of the environment.
The pace of change to renewable energy is slow because it is insufficiently profitable. Under capitalism, moving away from fossil fuels, which still supply 85% of the world’s energy, would threaten the solvency of banks and pension funds.
With its infinite need to raise productivity, its predatory need to consume territory and natural resources and its necessary tendency to overaccumulate, capitalism is a runaway train approaching a cliff edge.
The only system capable of marshalling the level of organisation necessary for a sustainable future is planned ecosocialism.
This is proven by socialist Cuba. According to the United Nations’ 2016 Human Development Report.
Cuba is one of just a few countries that has improved the wellbeing of its citizens while developing sustainably.
As Marx foretold: Revolution or ruin!
Read more: Socialism is good for the environment
