According to a recent UN report, the world is at risk of becoming unfit for human life unless carbon dioxide begins to decline by 2025 and reaches net-zero by the 2050s. While the ruling class has altered some policies and piously pledged to decrease dependence on fossil fuels, they are not doing anywhere near enough to reduce carbon emissions. Facing cataclysmic global ruin, governments are concerned first and foremost with protecting capitalist profits.
An international socialist federation will be able to plan on a global scale to mitigate and adapt to dramatic ecological changes. / Image: Socialist Revolution
The poorest and most precarious layers of humanity will be the first to bear the brunt of this ecological crisis. Economic disaster is pressuring more impoverished workers to risk fishing outside the prescribed boundaries and with ecologically unsafe intensity. Ecological collapse only worsens the problem as previously vibrant parts of the ocean are killed off, pushing fishing crews to cross maritime borders to get a decent catch, and the resulting conflicts have already killed workers. As a result, rival states are using their navies more vigorously to protect “their” waters or even to guard fishing boats as they engage in risky activities. Last year, the Sri Lankan navy allegedly shot five Indians engaged in such fishing.
Meanwhile, the melting Arctic is becoming viable for commercial fishing for the first time in history, creating new potential fisheries to serve as objects of violent competition. Even more profitable is the Arctic Ocean’s potential role in international trade. For centuries, capitalists have dreamed of using the waters in the northernmost region of the planet as an artery for global trade. But the ice always made it too treacherous an investment until the glaciers started to recede rapidly.
Soon, voyages through previously impassable sections of the ocean will be possible. While this may seem positive at a superficial level, international shipping is one of the most significant causes of carbon pollution. Global trade under the free-market system is highly complex. Supply chains are designed for manufacturing commodities as cheaply as possible and selling them wherever they can get the highest price. As a result, an individual product might travel to multiple continents throughout its manufacture before reaching its final destination.
There has, therefore, been a drive to make larger, heavier cargo ships, resulting in mishaps like the 2021 Suez Canal incident, and significantly larger carbon footprints. An increase in shipping through the Arctic Circle would mean more ships on the water and accelerated climate change. However, the real money might be below the ocean, not on its surface.
Scientists believe up to 15% of the world’s untapped oil is found in the Arctic, as well as 30% of its undiscovered natural gas, and many valuable minerals. Despite the dire consequences of climate change, the ruling classes of the world’s major powers are salivating at the possibility of unearthing up these hidden resources, especially fossil fuels.
Access to formerly inaccessible waters will have an untold impact on the environment as well as geopolitical relations. / Image: Mickoo357, Flickr
The sudden accessibility of the Arctic Ocean will, therefore, have profound geopolitical implications. Trillions of dollars are at stake, and the anarchy of the market prevents the representative governments of the capitalist class from taking meaningful action. In fact, the logic of capitalism dictates that the various nation states seek to take advantage of the receding polar cap to secure profits for their capitalists.
Russia, for example, has been preparing to stake a claim to the Arctic Ocean, which is logical given its geography. Russia is the most well-positioned country to tap its resources and benefit from its trade, but is also the most vulnerable to naval attacks from other imperialist powers. This shifting geopolitical reality will compel these rivals to build up their militaries even further, with no regard for the social costs. The reckless increase in carbon output involved in the production and use of weapons of mass destruction may be just as dangerous as the increased likelihood of conflict.
Capitalism has no solution for climate change nor the violent conflicts it is preparing for the world’s oceans. The logic of the market incentivizes these dangerous and short-sighted activities. Capitalist nation states are no better; their gestures towards decarbonization are less than useless compared to their nonstop military spending and reckless imperialist plunder. In the final analysis, the nationstate impedes efforts to minimize and adapt to the climate change crisis.
However, the workers of the world have no reason to commit ecological suicide. Humanity produces enough food to feed everyone many times over, so there is no need to engage in the reckless extraction of fish or other resources. Rather than forcing workers to take unnecessary risks for a few extra fish, an internationally planned economy would provide a dignified standard of living for all.
An international socialist federation would be able to plan on a global scale to mitigate and adapt to the coming dramatic ecological changes. Such a federation would remove the profit motive which speeds up the climate disaster. It would plan production to ensure that we produce sustainably for the benefit of humanity for many centuries to come.