May and June this year saw European cities sweltering under record breaking temperatures—from 35°C on London streets, to 30°C in Shannon, to the decision in Paris to allow canal swimming as France experienced its hottest ever day with highs of over 40°C. Heat waves are getting more frequent and extreme in a world about 1.4C warmer on average than during the late 19th century. Meanwhile the persistent use of fossil fuels continues to drive the planet toward catastrophic temperature rises. Past certain “tipping points,” life-sustaining ecosystems will be unable to return to functioning as usual.

El Niño

An attribute of the new era of environmental instability is the role of “El Niño” (Little Boy) and “La Niña” (Little Girl). The “boy” and “girl” are used to denote the cyclical patterns of heating and cooling in the Pacific Ocean.

Centering on atmospheric pressure changes between the east and west tropical Pacific, El Niño sees sea temperatures rise 0.5°C above the long-term average, while “La Niña” is episodes of cooler than average sea surface. While this is a natural process, the impacts of El Niño have been greatly exacerbated by climate change across the globe—bringing drought, shortages and destruction.

The conditions cultivated by capitalism’s fossil fuel driven economy mean increasingly devastating human impacts as El Niño interacts with the climate crisis. Previously a periodic weather event, known to sailors as early as 1600, global warming now means more extreme, longer “super El Niño” events are more and more likely.

Evidence suggests an 80% likelihood of an El Niño event starting in June 2026, to continue until 2027. Many forecasts have suggested this could be one of the strongest El Niños ever recorded. When realized, the weather system strikes different parts of the world with varied severity, from floods on the US mainland, to droughts in the subcontinent and severe winters in the UK. The defining feature of this will be instability, irregularity and violent conditions which disrupt animal and human life alike. The last El Niño caused 2024 to become the hottest year on record.

Profit Over A Livable World

Evidence of global warming has been seen in scientific studies stretching as far back as 1896. By 1938, engineer Guy Callendar linked rising temperatures directly to industrial output—yet the capitalist class has done little to nothing to avert the headlong rush toward ecological collapse.

The drive for net-zero, so essential for the preservation of livable world conditions, has essentially been dropped by the political establishment. It is openly derided by capitalist politicians—from Reform promising to “strike down” renewable energy contracts and champion fracking, to Trump’s campaign cry of “drill baby drill”. Tony Blair recently aggressively urged the Starmer and his potential replacements to “abandon” Net Zero commitments and move closer to Trump.

COP29 and 30 (the United Nations’ climate conferences) were defined not by achievements in world collaboration over the crisis, but the attendance of over a thousand registered fossil fuel lobbyists—70% more than the total number of delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations combined!

Growing imperialist rivalry, especially between the US and China, means governments are pushing for huge new investment in militarism. This has further held back even token efforts to curb pollution, with environmental policies quietly scrapped and natural resources plundered for profit.

In the past five years, the four major oil companies made more than $420 billion in combined profits. They are feeding off the uncertainties of war, with working-class people both footing the bill in terms of higher energy prices and facing the direct impact of the violent weather conditions these companies have cultivated. Beyond struggling in a sweating tube commute or fighting for uninterrupted sleep, the impact of capitalism’s endless drive for profit on the burning planet has far-reaching consequences.

Infrastructure is simply not prepared for the ecological impact of the climate crisis. In the UK properties lack features for extreme heat and rain fall, with 90% of homes at risk of overheating during summer months and 6.3 million at immediate flood risk. Competition and cost is moved from those garnering the benefit of ecological demise onto struggling poor and working-class families across the world.

Energy prices, already driven high by the closure of the strait of Hormuz, will feel the impact of the competing need for liquefied gas for heating and cooling systems, which is expected to add £211 annually to average energy bills. England’s privatized water supply is predicted to regularly fall short by five billion liters of national need per day in the summer months, also pushing prices higher.

Socialist Revolution Needed For The Environment

What is evident is that no solution can be expected from the capitalist system, which prioritizes profit over a collapsing environment and the lives of the working class. As long as capitalism persists as the economic order of the world, climate destruction will continue to be the norm.

We urgently need a new climate movement, led by the trades unions, the working class and young people which fights for massive investment in green energy, free public transport and green, affordable homes. Instead of calling for expansion of polluting industries like North Sea Oil to “protect jobs,” unions need to campaign for a worker-led transition, with massive investment into green jobs on union rates of pay. Workers currently in polluting industries are best placed to develop plans for the re-tooling and re-skilling needed to transition to environmentally sustainable jobs with no loss of work, pay or conditions.

Big business, banks and energy companies must be nationalized, taken out of the hands of the billionaires and into those of the people. This would allow for the development of a planned, democratically-run socialist economy with production informed by the needs of humanity and the planet, not the drive to profit.

It is not possible for the functioning of a capitalist system to be reconciled with meaningful environmentalism. Competition will not cede to collaboration—profit for the few will not be abandoned for the welfare of the many unless a powerful, socialist working-class movement organizes to make it happen.

Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Russian revolution, once said that “as long as human labor power, and, consequently, life itself, remain articles of sale and purchase, of exploitation and robbery, the principle of the ‘sacredness of human life’ remains a shameful lie, uttered with the object of keeping the oppressed slaves in their chains.” 

We need a complete revolution in the structure of society and method of production to draw us back from the precipice the 1% has driven us to. We need socialism.