Climate records have been broken time and again over the summer. With June the hottest month on record, followed by the hottest few days on record in July globally, scientists are warning that worst-case scenario predictions for climate change are already upon us. This is an unprecedented period where many different aspects of the Earth’s climate system are entering abnormal and record-breaking territory at the same time. This is exactly what was predicted if humans did not take action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Capitalism continues to burn fossil fuels at unsustainable rates.
Heatwaves: sea and land
Marine heatwaves are happening across the world’s oceans, including the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. In June temperatures off the west coast of Ireland were between 4 and 5°C above average, which is classed by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a category five heatwave – beyond extreme. Meanwhile, a ‘heat dome’ over southern Europe has led to Mediterranean sea surface temperatures exceeding 30°C off the coast of southern Italy. As the world has warmed in recent decades the oceans have absorbed most of the excess heat from the atmosphere. The marine organisms which produce half the world’s oxygen need 50% more food to be able to cope with these temperature changes. Extremely high sea temperatures making water too hot to hold oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico have already resulted in thousands of fish washing up dead on Texas’s eastern coast. Marking a future of even more unpredictable ocean trends, the sea ice level in Antarctica this year is 10% lower than the previous lowest record. Scientists do not understand either the pace of this change or its potential consequences.
Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and Poland are experiencing the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe, the fastest warming continent on the planet. These temperatures have already caused horrific fires in the Italian island of Sicily, and Rhodes, a Greek island off the coast of Turkey. People living in cities in Sicily report 48 hours without water or electricity because cables melted in 46°C heat. This trend is likely to continue. The World Health Organisation’s senior extreme heat adviser has said that the current European heatwave is directly related to climate change causing the loss of polar ice. A powerful heatwave over North America for weeks now has caused concrete temperatures so hot that people are crowding emergency burn units from simple falls on sidewalks in Arizona.
On top of this, torrential floods struck countries around the world simultaneously in the first weeks of July: South Korea, US, Chile, Brazil, Afghanistan, India, Canada and more. The diversity of countries affected demonstrates that the nightmarish impacts of climate change are no longer limited to underdeveloped countries: the developed world must now contend with the cataclysmic environmental consequences of imperialism.
British government and Labour: sacrificing climate for electoral wins
It is in this setting that the British government has thrown out even its limited ‘green agenda’, instead approving plans for Britain’s first deep coal mine in 30 years to open near Whitehaven in Cumbria. It has also offered over 100 new licences for oil and gas companies to explore for fossil fuels in almost 900 locations.
Tellingly, Labour has also failed to promise decisive policies to make the transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy. It has refused to take a stand against deep sea mining. It has attempted to show off its green credentials by announcing that it will not grant any new exploration licences for oil and gas. This conveniently allows oil and gas companies to pursue drilling opportunities: the estimated over one billion barrels of oil and gas resources yet to be found on the UK continental shelf are located on exploration licences that these companies already own. Labour has been careful to reassure the oil and gas companies that under a Labour government, pre-existing claims will be respected, and North Sea oil and gas will continue to be produced for decades to come.
Labour has also predictably backtracked on promises of investing £28bn a year in green jobs and industry. Meanwhile it demonises those protesting against the government’s lack of action on the climate crisis as troublemakers, stating Labour ‘does not support the disruptive tactics of XR and JSO’. Even limited car reduction measures like ULEZ face being jettisoned for short-term electoral wins, both parties vying for the votes of the most reactionary sections of the working class.
The message could not be clearer – progress cannot be made on the climate crisis whilst we still live under capitalism. It’s too late to prevent 1.5°C warming. We must act now to build a socialist society if humanity is to survive into the next century.
Claire Wilkinson and Soma Kisan
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 295 August/September 2023
