What would the communist solution to climate change look like?

Climate change poses a catastrophic threat to the future of humanity. The capitalist class has proven itself utterly incapable of tackling this problem.

Along with a deep economic crisis, major political instability and imperialist wars, millions of people across the planet are also experiencing first-hand the impacts of climate change. These increasingly bleak prospects are leading to a profound questioning amongst young people. It is no surprise that the slogan, ‘System change not climate change!’ became one of the main slogans of the Fridays For Future movement. But what would ‘system change’ look like?

Marxists cannot predict the future with absolute certainty, but by analysing the productive capabilities that have developed under capitalism, we can deduce what steps could be taken to begin to tackle climate change and to mitigate the worst of its effects.

The prior condition, however, is to break down the barriers that capitalism has erected – the barriers of private property and the nation state – and to begin organising society around the satisfaction of human needs, not profit.

Spiralling out of control

This will be a momentous task for humanity to tackle; the planet has already warmed enough that significant climate impacts are now unavoidable.

The 2015 COP summit set a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels to avoid the ‘worst impacts’. Yet by February 2024, scientists warned that the world’s average temperatures had already exceeded that threshold for 12 consecutive months.

Even the initial limit of 1.5C of warming was always going to be devastating. The signatures of capitalists and politicians on this agreement were, in effect, promises of ruin for the planet. As Marx said: “The view of nature attained under the domination of private property and money is a real contempt for, and practical debasement of, nature”.

Heatwaves are becoming deadlier and more destructive for people, infrastructure, and ecosystems. In New Delhi, temperatures reached over 40 degrees for an entire month in 2024. Yet around three-quarters of the workforce in India is forced to labour with little to no cooling available. In Norway, a heatwave crippled hospital operations as air conditioning systems, where they existed, failed. One hospital there even introduced strict criteria for who could be accepted into the maternity ward to give birth.

Wildfires are growing more intense, with 2025 being the worst year on record for Europe / Image: public domain

Wildfires are growing more intense, with 2025 being the worst year on record for Europe. Los Angeles was engulfed in wildfires for almost the entirety of January. These fires are releasing millions of additional tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, whilst also destroying vast swathes of land, homes, critical infrastructure, and killing frontline firefighters through prolonged exposure to toxic smoke and ash.

Catastrophic flooding is becoming increasingly common. Since July, floods in Pakistan have killed over 700 people, as increasingly powerful downpours trigger flash floods in a region where up to 96 million people live along riverbanks. This past month, over 1,300 have been killed by floods in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand.

Storms are growing more destructive. Last year, there were record-breaking streaks of tropical cyclones hitting the Philippines.

These disasters are exposing the indifference and incompetence of our rulers. In Valencia one year ago, the right-wing PP regional president delayed issuing flood warnings for hours while he enjoyed lunch at a restaurant. Meanwhile, bosses continued to send workers out in extremely dangerous conditions. “Els nostres morts, els seus beneficis” (Our dead, your profits) read a piece of graffiti at the time. A year later, the anger hasn’t subsided: the regional president was finally forced to resign a few weeks ago.

The situation is already horrifying, yet the worst is still ahead.

An end to fossil fuels is possible

Over half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the fossil fuel industry. This means that burning coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat are the key culprits driving global warming.

This is an endless source of profit for capitalists, who show no sign of stopping. This year, BP claimed it would invest $10 billion per year to step up exploration of oil fields and increase production. The Brazilian government has given ‘exploration rights’ to oil and gas fields spanning an area more than twice the size of Scotland. Norway has announced plans to increase drilling in the Arctic region. This is just a glimpse into the problem.

Fossil fuels are an endless source of profit for capitalists, who show no sign of stopping / Image: Janak Bhatta, Wikimedia Commons

At the same time, there have been huge advancements made in solar and wind power, which can generate heat and electricity without the greenhouse gas emissions of fossil fuels, and have the potential to be much cheaper.

Due partly to favourable weather, by August this year, solar power generated in Britain produced more than it did in the entirety of 2024. That is enough electricity to power the London Underground for more than a decade!

China has become a world leader in green energy, controlling 80 percent of global capacity across the solar panel supply chain and between 60-80 percent for wind turbines. In the first half of 2025 alone, China was responsible for 67 percent of new solar panel capacity, which is over twice that of the rest of the world combined.

But under capitalism, our very success in ramping up production turns into a barrier to further development and the full utilisation of the potential created. It is already clashing with the limits of the market. In 2023 alone, manufacturers produced three times more solar panels than the global economy could absorb. Thus, the sector has entered into a crisis of overproduction. This means that crates of panels have been sitting in ports and warehouses, idle and unused!

Irrational system

It would take about 51 billion 350W solar panels to power the entire world. Chinese industry alone constructed roughly one billion solar panels in 2023. Overproduction of solar panels in China has glutted the market, which has driven down costs in all parts of the supply chain, with prices of solar panels dropping by over 80 percent.

Rather than utilising these low prices to the benefit of the green energy transition, a group of solar companies asked the Chinese government to step in to set a minimum price for solar panels and cut down on investment in the industry, to mitigate the impacts of overproduction so that they can continue to profit.

And, in a further attempt to boost their profit margins, the largest solar firms got rid of 87,000 jobs in 2024, claiming “at least 20-30 percent of manufacturing capacity would have to be eliminated for companies to return to profitability”.

Chinese overproduction and its dominance in the industry have also meant that US and European solar and wind manufacturing have struggled to compete. The sector in Europe has, in turn, experienced bankruptcies, factory closures, and job losses. Switzerland’s Meyer Burger Technology, for instance, was forced to close one of Europe’s largest solar panel plants in Germany and subsequently filed for insolvency. Europe has therefore placed tariffs on Chinese imports to boost its competitiveness.

Chinese solar panels have become so cheap, that in the Netherlands and Germany it is now economical to install panels as garden fences (where they operate rather ineffectively) rather than install them on rooftops. And yet, such cheap, abundant solar panels are a bad thing for European capitalism!

According to the Financial Times:

“A solar panel cost 11 US cents per watt at the end of March, or just half the price it was at the same time last year, according to BloombergNEF, and was expected to fall further in a ‘race to the bottom’ as manufacturers competed to get rid of excess supply. Below a ‘red line’ of 15 cents per watt, it would not be possible for the company to invest seriously in European manufacturing… ‘You're not going to do that with a crazy little margin that isn’t going to pay for anything.’”

Investors are also driven away by the threat of ‘sub-zero’ electricity prices which, due to the fluctuations that come from wind or solar power, means that the supply of energy can surge, forcing prices into the negative if the excess energy capacity cannot be stored.

As Bloomberg reported:

“While all that cheap power can be good news for households and industries, it’s a serious concern for investors in renewable energy assets, as the volatility in prices is a threat to steady profits”.

The fact is clear: the technology exists – not in the realm of science fiction, but in the real world today – to enable a green energy transition. But it is held back by the private ownership of the means of production by parasitic capitalists, who invest and produce in order to turn a profit, not out of the want to fulfil social needs.

Whilst there has been an impressive ramping up of renewable energy production, like solar panels, the sector will run up against a problem: once solar panels are installed, they will deliver energy for years, even decades. The market thus quickly becomes glutted and ceases to be profitable. Investment dries up.

This is compounded by the narrow limits of the nation-state, as the capitalist class of each national market competes to boost their own competitiveness on the global market. In the US, for instance, tariffs on Chinese imports have increased and subsidies have been put in place for solar manufacturers at home – but even with these subsidies, US industries are unable to seriously compete with their Chinese counterparts.

Under capitalism, the fact that Chinese industry is capable of producing immense quantities of solar panels – which could be installed on every house, and used to majorly shift how we produce energy – is a bad thing, as it eats into the profits of other national gangs of capitalists. Furthermore, as the West and China face each other as imperialist rivals, fearing dependence on their rival for energy capacity production, the response is to attempt to hamper, drive off and stymie the other’s industries through protectionist barriers.

The technology exists – not in the realm of science fiction, but in the real world today – to enable a green energy transition / Image: Ermell, Wikimedia Commons

Without private ownership, and with an economy driven by planning for social need, workers in the US could cooperate with workers in China to export the technology required to build high-quality solar panels en masse at home.

In fact, a relatively tiny proportion of the planet’s surface could be used to facilitate this. We would need an area covering roughly 115,625 square miles to accommodate all of the 51 billion solar panels required. The Sahara Desert covers 3.6 million square miles and suffers no shortage of sunlight. Space could be freed up elsewhere for reforestation projects, for instance, to help the planet recover from mass deforestation.

But to undertake such a gargantuan project would require huge levels of cooperation across the world. With the potential to generate electricity and heat for the entire world, this, by necessity, would require research and building to be done by workers across the world in order to ensure it can connect everywhere needed and operate smoothly.

It would require constant monitoring and coordination to overcome problems and to keep it functioning. The international character of the global economy, developed by capitalism, has laid the basis for this cooperation and the spreading of technology. What is required is to remove the barriers of private ownership and the nation state.

Shifting to these sources of energy will also require more than just building wind turbines or installing solar panels. Critical infrastructure will need to be built to guarantee this energy can be transported safely. Under capitalism, this infrastructure has experienced under-investment, and is now unable even to fully utilise the wind and solar energy that is already in place.

An example of this is Britain’s National Grid, which has paid out nearly £28 billion in dividends to shareholders since it was privatised, whilst the pace of investment in the energy network has stagnated. At the same time, investment in renewable energy has led to large wind farms being built. In Scotland, wind farms could have even produced enough power for all homes in Scotland across a six month period, but were paid millions not to as the energy transport cables could not handle this ‘excess renewable energy’. In turn, consumers have had these costs added to their energy bills.

A most catastrophic result of this failure of the anarchic capitalist market to keep pace with the infrastructural needs of a transition to renewables was seen earlier this year in Spain. In Spain, there has been a big increase in renewable sources connected to the grid. But when favourable weather conditions led to a spike in energy from these sources, the grid suffered a shock that led to a massive nationwide blackout.

The problem is soluble. There are means to increase the so-called ‘inertia’ of electrical grids, but they require investment. The privatised electricity companies have failed to make such investments, because their first goal is above all to cut costs to boost profit.

In Britain, there is now a secondary bottleneck to update the electric grids themselves. Supply chain shortages are hampering the production of the cables required to carry wind and solar energy, pushing up the prices of what cables remain available. So just create more capacity to produce high-voltage cables – what’s the problem?

This infrastructure installation is a one-time event. From the point of view of infrastructure manufacturers, if they build factories, then satisfy that demand, they are left with an excess of productive capacity and no profits going forward.

As consultancy firm Baringa put it:

“Despite the huge increase in network build required for the future, suppliers are reluctant to invest in new capacity given uncertainty about long-term demand for specific components, wider regulation, and funding.”

For humanity, building the infrastructure would be an enormous boon. For the manufacturers, it is more profitable to continue producing at a snail’s pace, leading to demand bottlenecks and years of delays… but also guaranteed profits!

Revolutionising agriculture

Second to energy in greenhouse gas emissions is agriculture, which is responsible for around a third of all emissions. Current agricultural practices achieve high productivity but degrade the environment. Writing in Capital, Marx explained that:

“All progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility…”

Enough food is produced to feed all people on the planet, and then some, but one in 11 people go to bed hungry every day. It’s estimated that up to one-third of all food produced for human consumption globally is not even used. This is a due to combination of high prices, inefficiencies in the supply chain damaging food items, or food being thrown away by retailers as it doesn’t get purchased. In Britain alone, around 9.5 million tonnes of food is thrown away every year, which is enough to feed over 30 million people, in a country where around 8.4 million live in food poverty.

Developing forms of sustainable agriculture that do not destroy the environment, and ensuring the rational distribution of this food so that human needs are met, are the most pressing tasks. Just like we’ve seen with solar power, agriculture is undergoing innovation that promises more efficient, environmentally harmonious food production.

A case in point is the Netherlands – the world’s second largest exporter of agricultural products by value behind the US, which has 270 times its landmass. It has done this through specialising in indoor farms, which use renewable energy to produce light for plants which are stacked vertically in trays, taking up less space than traditional farming methods. Any water used is recirculated, achieving almost 100 percent water efficiency.

This is astonishing as climate change catastrophically threatens sources of fresh water, and the prospect looms of wars fought over water. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile has already led to a souring of relations between Ethiopia and Egypt. The question of water rights is likewise a live issue between India and Pakistan, as the Indus flows right through Kashmir.

Climate change catastrophically threatens sources of fresh water, and the prospect looms of wars fought over water / Image: public domain

Israel’s control over the Golan Heights, through which the Jordan River passes, and the west bank of the Jordan River are a question of colonial expansion in general. They are also a question of controlling water in particular.

Dutch agricultural methods have given a glimpse of what more could be done, however, with scarce water. It has proven to be one of the most effective methods for growing leafy greens, herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, and certain species of berry. In particular, the Dutch tomato industry now produces more tomatoes per square mile than anywhere else in the world using this technique.

Another development is ‘precision farming’, which uses technology that analyses the soil chemistry, water content, and the rate of growth, in order to deduce the optimal conditions required to help the crops grow. As opposed to a ‘one size fits all’ approach, this allows for a far more efficient utilisation of resources.

A farmer using this in the Netherlands has an average yield of 20 tonnes of potatoes per acre, whereas the global average yield (using conventional farming methods) produces around 9 tonnes.

This ground-breaking agricultural research could be put to use all across the world in order to ensure that agriculture everywhere is carried out in the most efficient and sustainable way possible.

Currently 44 percent of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, an area around five times the size of the US. Yet, as demonstrated through Dutch farming techniques, clearly we could produce higher quality yields with less land, all across the world, and help to halt deforestation – 90 percent of which is driven by agriculture.

This could quickly free up land currently used for farming for other purposes, such as housing, infrastructure, and reforestation projects. Research in China and Panama has shown that planting forests with mixed plant species helps with regulating temperatures, storing greater amounts of carbon dioxide, and sustaining wildlife.

Another paper, published in Science, estimated that we could absorb 25 percent of all atmospheric carbon dioxide by planting half a trillion trees across 2.2 billion acres. That is an area equivalent to 19 percent of the land presently used for agriculture.

On the basis of the rationalisation of agriculture worldwide, sharing the most advanced techniques, this would be eminently achievable. But there is absolutely no way to do this under capitalism because there is not a single cent of profit to be made in completely reorganising agriculture just to plant trees. Of course, it is not ‘just’ guaranteeing trees, it is guaranteeing a future for our species.

Furthermore, these programmes would require careful planning and monitoring on an international level. They would completely alter the kind of work that millions of farmers and agricultural workers are engaged in. They would require a central plan to retrain and rationally reallocate that labour, ensuring full useful employment for millions. They would require that private property over the relevant technology is socialised and put at the disposal of that plan.

Even livestock agriculture – a driving factor of deforestation to clear land required either directly or indirectly with the food animals need to eat – could be part of this reforestation. Studies in ‘silvopastoral systems’ have found that integrating trees, plants, and livestock onto the same land leads to greater amounts of carbon dioxide being removed from the atmosphere and greater soil fertility. Research has also shown the methane emissions of livestock could be reduced by up to 80 percent by changing the diet of cows to red seaweed.

Ultimately, a handful of giant monopolies control agriculture – they determine what is grown, how, and what it sells for on the market. For example, just four companies control 85 percent of the US meat market. The food industry is highly profitable, generating around $1.9 trillion in sales annually in the US alone. The most profitable methods for them are the worst for the environment – over half of US land area is used for agriculture, with two-thirds of this being used for animal grazing.

None of the negative consequences for humanity appear on the balance sheets of these giant agribusinesses. Indeed, they have a word for them: ‘externalities’. And, indeed, these are ‘externalities’ when it comes to making a profit.

The CEOs, shareholders and their corrupt ilk in government will not change this just out of ‘goodwill’. Their current methods are profitable, and no capitalist will upend their entire production line, and invest vast sums into new methods, if it will eat into their profits.

Only by expropriating ‘big food’ and planning food production rationally, under workers’ control, can we apply the current potential that exists to solving the problems facing humanity.

With the barriers posed by capitalism out of the way, there is no reason why all forms of agriculture could not be revolutionised.

Climate-proof housing

Whilst investment in ways to produce the necessities of life in a greener and more sustainable way is vital, a great deal of damage has already been done to the planet. It is therefore necessary to look at adaptation to the changes that are occurring in climates across the world, such as extreme heat, and more violent storms.

A huge project will be required to render buildings around the world ‘climate safe’. Most are not fit for the climate change which we are experiencing now, let alone the changes that are to come. For instance, schools in London are projected to be exposed to up to ten weeks of ‘extreme heat’ a year. Yet research has shown there are energy-conserving ways to build that promote cooling breezes, ventilation, sheltering walls, reduction of heat radiation, all of which could be implemented on a mass scale to prevent extreme heating indoors.

There is also the threat that wildfires, droughts, storms, and floods will have on buildings and housing. In the next 15 years for instance, the New York area could lose over 80,000 homes to flooding if no action is taken to build flood defences.

Yet urban planners and real estate developers already know measures that could be taken to mitigate the worst effects of these, saving lives and reducing the prospect of people losing their homes and vital services in the community like supermarkets, schools and hospitals.

Some developments include ‘hurricane-proof’ homes, where houses are built above the minimum safety standards required, such as through building on deeper foundations seven feet into the ground rather than three feet; building living spaces sixteen feet above sea level; girding the houses with steel straps; and burying power lines instead of having them exposed, to protect them from wind damage.

In a striking example, Hurricane Milton, which swept across mainly Mexico, Cuba, the Bahamas, and Florida in 2024, left three million people without power. But the Hunters Point housing development, built in a similar manner to the above, survived and kept all of the lights on.

Urban planners and real estate developers already know measures that could be taken to mitigate the worst effects / Image: public domain

Once more, housing under capitalism is built on the basis of profiteering, leading to cutting corners and safety measures being disregarded, but with a planned economy focused on meeting social needs, housing would be built differently. These homes are also only accessible to a small layer of the population who can afford $1.4-1.9 million houses.

Production for need, not profit, would enable everyone to live in safe housing that is built to handle extreme weather events. The construction companies must be nationalised and democratically run by the workers who could develop a mass programme for building these homes and buildings, alongside renovating existing buildings to bring them up to scratch.

Using the existing research and technology today would certainly go a long way in providing for humanity whilst working to restore the environment and mitigate further global warming, and shows the potential that exists in technology that we already have today, being put to use for social needs.

The examples highlighted in this article are just some glimpses into what could be achieved if the needs of humanity were put before profit. But what more could be achieved when men and women are freed from drudgery and are given all the tools of science and industry to find new ways to mitigate and reverse the climate crisis?

There are examples already out there of what ingenuity lies hidden in the working class, which is kept boxed up by the fact that capitalism reduces the worker to the position of a mere appendage to the machine.

The Lucas Aerospace Plan in Britain is one very interesting example, which shows what public ownership and democratic workers' control could do to revolutionise production and plan it according to human needs. In the 1970s, the company was being used to produce military technology, but, faced with potential job losses amidst the economic crisis, the workers themselves came up with an alternative plan for how to use both the factory and their skills.

They showed how the company could create new, socially useful products. The plan included 150 designs, such as renewable energy solutions – they were even researching solar cell technology, heat pumps for homes and hybrid power for cars – which was extremely farsighted at the time when climate change was barely being discussed.

The very existence of the working class provides the basis to harness and expand the technology required to mitigate climate change / Image: VirtualWolf, Wikimedia Commons

Engineers involved in this process have said it was an illuminating experience, with one saying: “...if I had my life over I wouldn’t change that Lucas experience for anything”.

The Lucas Plan shows the potentially boundless creative potential of the working class when it is given the chance to control production. That these were workers at an arms factory who were able, by their creativity and collective knowledge, to advance a serious and economically viable plan to repurpose their factories towards socially-useful ends has a new piquancy 50 years on.

Today, the ruling class are pouring hundreds of billions into weapons of destruction. The working class has the power, not only to call a halt to this mad rush towards rearmament, but to seize those factories, and in short order to convert them into the very weapon we will turn against climate change.

Communists are fighting to make this a reality across the world. You can only begin to imagine the heights society could rise to as the possibilities develop for humans to coexist with nature. The very existence of the working class – composed of billions of workers across the world capable of running and advancing production for social needs – provides the basis to harness and expand the technology required to mitigate climate change and possibly halt it altogether.

The parasitic capitalist class’ ownership of the means of production and the limitation of the nation state are preventing humanity from undoing the ruin of the planet under the capitalist system. The future of the planet depends on their overthrow.