Capitalism is killing the planet.

As of 2024, the world has already warmed 1.3℃ above the 20th century average.  An increase to 2℃ would cause one billion excess deaths over the next century.

Every year, the ruling class organizes summits and conferences where they pretend to care. Every single one has failed to produce tangible results.

Environmental destruction is inherent to capitalism. As capitalists scramble to grab “their share” of the loot, they doom the planet and society to a future of barbarism. They have thrown humanity—and the entire planet—into an existential crisis. They must be overthrown.

The only force on earth that can accomplish this task is the organized working class. The establishment of workers’ governments around the world would release the combined productive forces of mankind from the shackles of private property and the nation-state, allowing us to collectively control our destiny, and that of the planet.

Tremendous waste

Estimates for keeping warming below 2℃ vary wildly, from $200 billion to $6.7 trillion annually over thirty years.

The capitalist class, which has the world’s surplus value in its pockets, squanders this wealth in the most destructive and wasteful ways.

In 2024, global military spending amounted to $2.7 trillion. Advertising wasted $1.1 trillion. Stock buybacks of the S&P 500 came to $900 billion. Over $1.1 trillion of uninvested cash is sitting in the accounts of American capitalists. In 2024, $1.1 trillion flowed into stock market speculation rather than productive investment. The US military cannot account for 63% of its $4 trillion in assets. Examples like this could be reproduced endlessly to show the mind-boggling amount wasted under the irrational capitalist system.

A workers’ government would channel the combined resources of society into efforts that society and the planet truly need.

According to some estimates, the infrastructure upgrades required for flood-proofing the US coastline would cost between $68 billion and $350 billion—less than a third of the annual US military budget.

A workers’ government would mobilize the resources of a planned economy for huge public works projects to prevent natural disasters. We could build flood walls and levees, upgrade collapsing drainage systems, restore wetlands, and re-direct the flow of excess water away from cities and population centers. We could build thousands of top-of-the-line water-treatment facilities and reorganize agriculture with improved irrigation techniques to make our use of the land far more efficient, productive, and sustainable.

According to some estimates, by 2050, extreme heat will kill 9,000 people a year in Phoenix alone. To mitigate the effects of rising temperatures, we could redirect resources to production and installation of AC to allow people to shelter from heat. In order to reduce the urban heat-island effect, we could transform cityscapes by planting trees, gardens, and hydroponic farms on heat-absorbing surfaces.

Unleashing the potential of mankind

At the top of the agenda would be huge investment into reorganizing energy production—ending the economy’s dependence on fossil fuels by building nuclear, solar, wind, and tidal power plants. We would expand the capacity of the energy grid to avoid overcharging and power outages.

Under capitalism, automation means job losses. Under socialism, it would mean freeing up the combined time and energy of mankind to focus on society’s more pressing needs.

Only 31% of environmental science graduates find jobs in their field. Under socialism, instead of wasting scientists’ time on greenwashing companies’ public images and increasing profits, we would use their expertise to aid us in actually ending the climate crisis.

Recent breakthroughs in nuclear fusion have proven that huge amounts of energy could be produced with relative ease through this technology. Yet the capitalists have ignored investing in fusion research because it would produce energy so cheaply and efficiently that it would undercut the profits of the fossil-fuel monopolies.

Fusion is just one of the many technologies that a workers’ government could fully research and develop. We could jumpstart a global campaign of knowledge sharing among researchers, collaborating to establish international scientific organizations beholden to solid science and society as a whole, rather than the narrow interests of a few capitalist parasites.

Without the shackles of private property and the nation-state, science and technology would flourish like never before, allowing our species to expand our horizons, and enabling us to find the most creative and brilliant solutions for tackling the climate crisis.

Natural disaster prevention under workers’ control

The capitalists would like us to think that the level of devastation brought about by natural disasters is inevitable. In reality, these events—although intensified by the climate crisis—are predictable and seasonal. The destruction they bring about is almost entirely due to the negligence of the capitalist state.

A workers’ government could devote significant resources to disaster warning, prevention, and response systems. Prior to hurricane or wildfire season, we could invest in mass education programs to train cadres in every town and city in emergency response and mass-evacuation. As soon as a natural disaster is forecast, they can mobilize the entire population to minimize the loss of life and damage to infrastructure. A well-funded  disaster-relief agency could activate its forces in advance to allow for an orderly and coordinated return to normal after disaster strikes, minimizing disruptions to daily life.

Some damage might be inevitable. But under a planned economy, we would be able to rebuild and repair housing and infrastructure in record time. Through the direct, democratic input of the workers in an affected area, the recovery and rebuilding efforts would be able to focus on the most pressing needs of the population.

These temporary disaster-relief measures would be aimed at preventing destruction and loss of life. Over time, more expansive public works and infrastructure projects would both minimize and mitigate the damage caused by climate disasters.

A global solution for a global crisis

One of the first tasks of a workers’ government in the US would be to use the enormous resources at our disposal to help build and strengthen the communist movement around the world. Like the Bolsheviks, a mass International would be a training ground for revolutionaries. We would appeal to workers in every country to organize to expropriate their own capitalists, emphasizing the existential threat that capitalism and climate change pose for humanity.

When workers come to power around the world, we can form a World Socialist Federation. Through this, we would be able to cooperate and pool our resources to meet human needs and tackle the climate crisis head-on.

With the capitalists at the helm, any “solution” to the crisis will be a solution for them.

Our solution is to throw them out of power. Once we expropriate capital on an international scale, we will finally be able to do what the ruling class’s climate agreements and summits have failed to do—and much more.