COP26 conference: Capitalists don’t cop to climate corruption

Over the 12 days of the climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, fossil fuel companies extracted a billion barrels of oil from the ground. As diplomats tap-danced around the climate crisis, capitalists guaranteed that even more Earth-warming carbon would clog the atmosphere. Beneath their fake show of unity and pathetically inadequate (and unenforceable) pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the bosses did what bosses do.  The COP26 conference was driven by the capitalist law of maximum profit and by the inter-imperialist rivalry heading toward global war. The only thing that unites the world’s ruling classes is their need to build racism, sexism, nationalism, and fascism to prepare for that war. Only communist revolution, led by Progressive Labor Party (PLP), can save a habitable planet by putting science and workers’ needs first.
Climate change and racist inequality
Though all workers are hurt by climate change, poor Black, Latin and Asian working-class areas suffer the most. An unprecedented drought in Madagascar has left more than one million people at risk of famine (U.N.,10/21). Rising sea levels in the Indian Ocean could erase the Maldive Islands within three generations (express.co.uk, 11/15/17). In the state of Bahia in northeastern Brazil, dried-out rivers are wiping out crops, drinking water, and farmers’ jobs (Yale Environment 360, 11/10). In September, Hurricane Ida swept through New York City and killed 11 workers trapped in illegal basement apartments in working-class  Asian neighborhoods—victims of both climate change and their landlords’ greed.  And let's not forget Hurricane Katrina, which in 2005 killed nearly 2,000 workers in New Orleans, 52 percent of them Black.
By far the worst is yet to come. By 2050, more than a billion workers could become climate refugees (theguardian.com, 9/9/20).
As the world burns, bosses jockey for profit
U.S. bosses are locked in a battle for markets and resources with their main imperialist rivals, China and Russia. There are trillions in potential profits in the shift to electric vehicles and clean energy sources like solar and wind. But there is also big money to be made today from dirty energy: coal, oil, and natural gas. From China and the U.S., the two worst emitters, to still-developing countries like India and Brazil, the capitalist rulers are slow-walking the transition to have it both ways. As a result, the 2030 pledges made in Glasgow would warm the globe by 2.7 degrees Celsius (or 3.7 degrees Fahrenheit)—far beyond the 1.5-degree limit set in Paris six years ago. It’s a formula for even more powerful and frequent hurricanes, more deadly floods, more lethal heat waves and wildfires—for runaway climate disaster.
The emissions reduction goals set in Glasgow, said an official with the United Nations Environment Program chair, were “generally vague and untransparent; they are hard to calculate and hold to account; many kick the can beyond 2030, when we know that we need to halve our emissions between now and 2030 to be on track to limit warming to 1.5 C.” Or as one climate policy analyst put it, COP26 “has a very big credibility gap” (Carbon Brief, 11/10).
Even as U.S. Hypocrite-in-Chief Joe Biden was pushing Saudi Arabia and Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to ease gas prices by pumping even more oil out of the ground (NPR, 10/31), he called out his imperialist counterparts, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, for failing to show up in Glasgow (BBC, 11/2). Workers should see Biden’s Russia- and China-bashing for what it is, a blatant attempt to build patriotic fervor for World War III—in other words, a deadly trap!
Big Fascists, big problems
According to a recent poll, 71 percent of young adults in the U.S. believe that climate change will harm them personally (Pew Research, September). The dominant finance capital wing of the U.S. ruling class is cynically trying to use the climate crisis to win support from workers who are desperate for real action. These liberal Big Fascists (See Glossary, p. 6) also know that fossil fuels are linked to extreme weather, massive crop damage, and the premature deaths and disability of millions of workers from heart and lung disease—all big hits to the bosses’ bottom line. Hence the $1 trillion Biden bill and the proposed $555 billion climate package in his embattled Build Back Better plan.
The Big Fascists’ problem is the disunity and lack of discipline within their own class. Small Fascist (See Glossary, p. 6) bosses like the Koch family, whose fortune was built on domestic oil, have led the charge to deny climate science and push back against regulations to limit carbon emissions. Mobilized by Donald Trump, the Small Fascists have hijacked the Republican Party, which stands unanimously opposed to Build Back Better, a mix of climate funding and some crumbs for social services. They have a staunch ally in Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a coal baron who has already gutted Biden’s proposal to clean up the electric power sector and is now threatening to torpedo Build Back Better altogether (MSNBC, 10/19).
The Big Fascists also have deep problems within their own camp. ExxonMobil, the multinational oil company and finance capital kingpin, has been exposed for mounting a climate disinformation campaign on Facebook—and then lying about it to a Congressional committee (msn.com, 11/3). “Did we aggressively fight against some of the science?” a company lobbyist admitted in an interview covertly filmed by Greenpeace. “Yes. We were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our shareholders" (CNN, 7/21).  
For the liberal U.S. bosses, from Biden to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Green New Deal, the biggest lie of all is their shameless pose as protectors of the environment and humanity. This is the same crew that’s planning a global war that will poison the atmosphere and slaughter untold millions of workers. Talk about toxic gases!  
Only communist revolution can solve climate crisis
The hundred thousand protestors on the streets of Glasgow last week made it clear that the international working class sees through the bosses’ empty words and phony shows of compassion. Most workers know instinctively that profit-driven capitalists can never solve the climate crisis. What they are missing is communist leadership and an analysis to turn the fight against carbon emissions into a fight for a world without money or racism or sexism or imperialist war. PLP works every day—on the job, in the schools, in our communities—to build a vision of a society run by and for the working class. Join us! Save the planet by smashing capitalism!