Climate Collapse Is Here, and Capitalism Is Fuelling It – The Red Weekly Column
In our Red Weekly Column, Fraser McGuire writes on corporate drivers of the climate crisis and building a unified response to the threat of climate breakdown.
On July 3 2025, the average sea surface temperature in the North West Mediterranean hit 6.2 degrees above the 1982-2015 average. The collapse of climatic systems is occurring at a rate faster than some of the ‘worst case scenario’ predictions of the early 2000s, yet every year millions are spent by the ultra-rich and multinational corporations on lobbying against regulations and for greenwashing and false, market-based solutions.
The drive for profit is choking the planet. The level of profit for fossil fuel companies is near unparalleled. Global oil and gas companies earned $2.4tn in 2023, and coal companies pocketed $2.5tn in the same year. The top 1 percent of global income earners were responsible for more than twice the emissions of the poorest 50 percent between 1990 to 2015.
It is crystal clear that destruction of the environment is profitable, and that suffering and death caused by the collapse of ecosystems are justified in the minds of the global ruling class if it means profits continue to roll in.
A recent report to the United Nations, ahead of the fifty-ninth session of the Human Rights Council, lays bare the scale of the calamity we face. It highlights how instances of extreme weather are increasing in frequency and severity, and links the rise of deadly floods, extreme heat, and drought to ever growing horrors of mass displacement, food scarcity, and resource shortages in the Global South.
The report urges that serious action to be taken, including criminal penalties for those complicit in the climate crisis, a complete ban on fossil fuel industry lobbying and advertisement, the compensation of communities harmed by climate breakdown, and crucially – for the full phasing out of oil, gas and coal by 2030 in wealthy fossil fuel nations.
Hope lies in the Global South. China, often demonised for having high emissions (despite being the most populous nation and producing goods for many other countries) has hit its 2030 targets for renewable energy six years ahead of schedule.
By 2026, solar capacity alone is projected to overtake coal as China’s leading energy source and in 2024, China led the world in energy transition investment, accounting for two-thirds of the $2.1 trillion spent globally, and making up a majority of the world’s new installations of solar and onshore wind power generation.
Other nations in the Global South have taken greater steps on emissions and nature than their wealthier Global North counterparts, including Bolivia and Ecuador, which have enshrined the Rights of Nature in their constitutions, providing a real alternative to extractivist, profit-driven development.
Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia, drew parallels between the genocide in Gaza and the suffering on the horizon as a result of extreme weather and climate instability. Speaking at the UN COP28 climate summit, he said “Genocide and barbaric acts unleashed against the Palestinian people is what awaits those who are fleeing the south because of the climate crisis”. It is clear that the double standards and censorship from Western media throughout the genocide in Gaza, will be replicated in the future, as the human cost of climate breakdown continues.
The bringing together of our trade unions with community organisations and climate campaigns will be central to having a unified and worker-led response to the threat of climate breakdown. Trade unions have the resources and the strategic position to make the threat of climate collapse impossible to ignore, because it is the workers in energy, transport, construction, and logistics who have their hands on the levers of the carbon intensive economy.
A workers’ economy, a comprehensive platform of policies for a green, socialist future, can guarantee both the protection of jobs and communities based around industry, and the safeguarding of our environment and planet.
- The Red Weekly Column will appear each Monday on Labour Outlook from one of our regular socialist contributors.
- Fraser McGuire is the Chair of East Midlands Unite Hospitality, Young Labour’s East Midlands representative and an organiser for Arise: A Festival Of Left Ideas. You can follow him on Twitter/X and Instagram.
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