This January it was made official: the year 2024 was the hottest on record at an average temperature of 15.10°C – 0.12°C higher than the previous record set in 2023, and 1.55°C above pre-industrial temperatures. The sudden surge of temperature has scientists worried; average global temperature is measured on a 10-year average, and it is unclear whether two consecutive record breaking years is an anomalous blip or the beginning of a trend of accelerated global warming. 2024 also set a new record for global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with an increase of 1.9% over the last record set in 2023. Regardless, appeals from experts – themselves a broken record – that now is the time for leaders to act have been repeated just as they have been for many, many years, and one trend we can be certain of is no substantial action will be taken. We can be certain of this because the capitalist system requires continual capital accumulation, which requires continual growth, which in turn requires continual consumption of energy through the plunder of raw materials, leading to continual trashing of the planet.

Disastrous Consequences

Worsening climate change means more intense weather and more frequent natural disasters. Floods in Europe caused over 337 deaths in 2024. In Spain the flooding was amongst the deadliest in history, causing 232 confirmed deaths. This was preceded by warmer-than-usual weather, with dried out soil less able to absorb groundwater, and record high temperatures in the Mediterranean, leading to increased evaporation and as such heavier rainfall. Meanwhile, rising ocean temperatures in the Atlantic made the 2024 hurricane season among the most destructive. Setting a new record for accumulated energy, it was the first season since 2019 and eighth since records began to feature multiple category 5 storms (>157MpH sustained wind speed). In the process it has claimed 401 lives and caused $130 billion (£105 billion) in damages, ranking as the third deadliest season in history behind 2005 and 2017. The 2024-2025 California wildfires, which at time of writing have finally been contained but continue to blaze, have burned through over 40,000 acres of land. Close to 200,000 people have been forced to evacuate and 29 have been confirmed dead, with many still missing. The fires have been caused by increasingly erratic weather patterns, with heavy volatile periods of rainfall followed by droughts causing grass and shrubs to grow in large quantities and then dry out, creating massive heaps of fuel for fires. Similar weather patterns caused flash flooding in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2024, killing over 1,000 people and displacing many more. Weather records are being broken more frequently, more people are dying and many more are displaced; in 2023, over 20 million people were displaced due to climate-related disasters and these numbers will only grow in the future.

Only the Working Class Can Stop Climate Disaster

Despite numerous international agreements, global targets, NGO climate commissions, and net zero advocacy groups pushing to keep emissions below 1.5°C before 2030 or net zero by 2050, little is set to significantly change. Current climate targets set by individual countries party to the Paris Agreement signed in 2016 would only reduce emissions by 2.6% compared to 2019 levels (if achieved) – far, far below the 43% required to avoid breaching 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and in many cases they are not being met. Among Trump’s first slew of executive orders upon return to the White House was to, once again, pull the US out of the Paris Agreement. The pleas of scientists fall on the deaf ears of our rulers who view the world, its people and nature as sources for the generation of profit, content in the understanding they have the wealth and means to secure at least their personal comfort and survival should the worst come to pass.

There is no innate conflict between human civilisation and the natural world; only between capitalist society and sustainable existence. There is also, however, class conflict: between the working class which is exploited for the production of surplus-value, and the capitalist class which must chase profit with reckless abandon. The pleas of scientists cannot fall deaf on the ears of the international working class, which will face the brunt of the fallout from climate catastrophe. And it is the international working class alone which holds the power to smash the destructive regime of global capital, seize the reins of society, and steer humanity away from climate apocalypse. Billions of workers share the same critical place as creators of the world's wealth, the same class struggle, and the same way to self-emancipation; if we unite across divisions, create self-organised bodies to coordinate our struggles, and take up a revolutionary perspective beyond the capitalist framework, this will be possible. Then, we can build a new world, where production is not designed to produce profit at any cost to people or the environment, but to provide for the needs of people and the world at large.

The above article is taken from the current edition (No. 70) of Aurora, bulletin of the Communist Workers’ Organisation.