The Climate Crisis: The Plunderers of the Planet Gather Around the Table

Statement by TKP Central Committee on the 31st UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) 

https://www.tkp.org.tr/en/agenda/the-climate-crisis-the-plunderers-of-the-planet-gather-around-the-table/
 

The COP31 United Nations Climate Change Conference is under way in Antalya.  

The climate crisis is a product of the system itself. Imperialism generates inequality within countries and across the world, then turns that inequality to profits. 

Today, the entire planet is paying the price for unplanned, unbalanced economic activity driven solely by private profit. 

Since the emergence of capitalism, the capitalist class has created enough wealth to guarantee prosperity for all humanity. Yet it has relentlessly exploited people and plundered the air, water and land, with no regard for the consequences for nature. The limits of scientific knowledge alone cannot explain this disregard. Taking those consequences into account would have imposed additional responsibilities and costs on capital. 

The system of exploitation eventually confronted a simple reality: the planet had to survive if exploitation was to continue. Yet, the capitalist class turned the very measures intended to ensure that survival into new avenues for profit. Once again, the oppressed were made to foot the bill, and they continue to pay it.

And it is these very forces that come together at COP to discuss the climate crisis. 

COP is not merely a gathering of states. Multinational monopolies and major conglomerates also make their presence felt, forging economic and commercial partnerships under the banner of environmental protection. Yet where big business is involved, there can be no talk of serving the public interest.

The inequalities inherent in the existing world order are just as apparent at COP. 

Under this system, some countries bear far greater responsibility than others for the political and social problems confronting the world's peoples. The same holds true for the climate crisis. Those who dominate global competition and flout the rules most brazenly also bear the greatest responsibility for the climate crisis. For example, some countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia, lacking advanced industrial production, have contributed the least to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, yet suffer the most from disasters caused by the climate crisis. 

How can we expect a platform dominated by imperialist powers and multinational monopolies to put an end to this injustice? 

Their proposed solution, so-called climate finance, amounts in practice to little more than saddling poorer countries with interest-bearing debt to the private sector. The money ultimately flows back to the imperialist powers and the multinational corporations allied with them. 

Green transition projects that open up new avenues for trade, investment and exploitation in industry offer no future for humanity. Nor do debates about renewable energy that disregard the need to provide working people with a sufficient supply of cheaper energy. 

There can be no meaningful discussion of energy security without confronting the slaughter of workers in mines and the devastation suffered by those who lose their homes and lives to floods. 

Any claim of genuine commitment to combating the climate crisis rings hollow without support for Cuba's transition to solar power. Among the countries hardest hit by the crisis, Cuba also faces total restrictions on access to oil as a result of the US blockade. 

Capitalist states that show no sense of responsibility for the health and welfare of their own people today can hardly be exp ected to assume responsibility for humanity and future generations. 

The situation is no different here in Turkey. 

The conglomerates sponsoring this conference have an appalling record towards both the environment and their workers. Many have their hands stained with the filth of the plunder of Turkey's natural resources, forests and waters, and with the blood of the workers they employed and killed. 

The public funds allocated to organising this conference demand scrutiny in their own right. Only a few months ago, at the NATO Summit in Ankara, those in power demonstrated how readily they put the people's resources at the service of their own political interests. 

“But surely there's the country's prestige to consider,” some might argue.But let us remind them: the true measure of a country's prestige lies first and foremost in the security and the prosperity of its people. 

Only two weeks ago, four construction workers lost their lives when a tornado tore apart their container accommodation in Antalya. Yet just days later, those in power mobilised public resources to stage a lavish conference in the very same city. They have precious little to be proud of. 

This conference once again brings home the task facing the working class: we must end the rule of capital, starting here in Turkey, if we are to stop the climate crisis from threatening our present and our future. 

We can pave the way towards a genuine solution to the climate crisis by bringing the means of production, including heavy industry, energy resources and all natural resources, into public ownership and building an economy based on central scientific planning and subject to workers' control.