The consequences of climate change are omnipresent and terrifying. In advanced capitalist countries, the increased ferocity of storms, fires, and floods is affecting more and more people. But for people living in the neocolonial world, these consequences are exponentially more catastrophic and devastating. Globally, climate migration will increasingly become an urgent issue for the working masses of our planet.
Extreme weather events are an increasing factor for migration. Since 2008, an average of 21.5 million people have been displaced by climate change. Low-lying island nations face rapid sea-level rise, parts of Africa and the Middle East endure severe drought, and areas like South Asia are increasingly flood-prone. The 2021 earthquake and tropical storm that hit Haiti contributed to over 10,000 Haitian migrants gathering at the U.S. border that year. The 2022 floods in Pakistan displaced 8 million people, including thousands immigrating to Europe.
The World Bank estimates that 40% of the global population lives in areas that are highly vulnerable to climate change. By 2050, as many as 1 billion environmental migrants are predicted by the United Nations International Organization for Migration.
But climate drives migration in more ways than extreme weather. It interacts with and amplifies other major migration drivers like economic hardship and war. The UN and predatory lending institutions like the World Bank can talk all they want about adaptation and preparation, but the very global capitalist system that these organizations uphold cannot solve the climate migration crisis, nor any of the related crises of war, poverty, and xenophobia.
Trump, Climate & Immigration
Trump is, of course, a climate change denier, and his policies are just as damaging as expected. His ridiculously misnamed “Big Beautiful Bill” will stifle the development of clean energy and lead to the emission of 260 million more tons of planet-heating pollution by 2035. Trump is also escalating oil and gas drilling, which will drastically worsen already dire climate predictions. His plan is for cheap oil prices to offset the inflationary consequences of his unnecessary and chaotic tariff war.
Meanwhile, more than 30 million people are projected to head to the U.S. in the next 30 years due to climate change. Trump’s draconian crackdown on immigration establishes a new baseline for immigration policy in a future where more and more people try to escape unlivable parts of the world due purely to capitalism and the crises it causes.
The rich can insulate themselves from climate catastrophe, but their profit-driven system will plunge us into disaster unless we fight back. In this increasingly desperate world, workers of all origins need to struggle alongside each other and not fight each other for crumbs.
War & Climate
Climate change is an accelerator of armed conflict while, in turn, war is an accelerator of climate change. From resource-intensive weapons manufacture to the impact of explosive munitions, if war were a country, it would have the fourth biggest carbon footprint. The war in Ukraine produced 230 million metric tons of CO2 emissions over 3 years, equivalent to the emissions of the entire United Kingdom in 2024.
Nearly 70% of Gaza’s farmland has been razed by war, and as much as 80% of its trees destroyed. This will accelerate desertification and have lasting consequences for future inhabitability.
Of the 83.4 million people globally displaced within their own country in 2024 alone, 73.5 million were displaced by conflict and violence and 9.8 million by climate-related disasters. Furthermore, climate change is increasingly becoming an amplifier of the drive toward war. Drought and famine in South Sudan aggravated food insecurity and displacement, fueling violence. Far from having interests in stopping the bloodshed, the main imperialist powers, such as the US, the EU, China, and Russia, are exploiting the conflict to gain access to valuable metals and minerals.
While many wars today are sparked by primarily geopolitical or national conflict, it is likely that the struggle for resources will play a larger, or even dominant role in future international conflict.
Imperialist Competition or Socialist Cooperation?
Capitalism creates the crises that force millions to uproot their lives. Ordinary people are caught in the crosshairs of imperialist competition, war, and climate catastrophe and bear the overwhelming brunt of the crises. Yet it is precisely ordinary, working class people who have the power to fight back and win decisive change. We must connect the climate, anti-war, and immigrant rights movements with a fighting approach that utilizes democratically planned and internationally coordinated walkouts, occupations, and strikes.
An economic system predicated on profit carries an internal logic that cannot solve its own crises. Instead, we need a democratically planned economy that oversees how resources are used on a global level—funding disaster-proof housing, infrastructure, and clean energy while putting people over profit. Ultimately we need a socialist system based on international solidarity: the opposite of nationalism, xenophobia, and militarism. We need a system that organizes society according to human need and the realities of the climate crisis.