How the logic of capitalism drives the planet to climate collapse

Capitalism's relentless pursuit of profit fuels the climate crisis, endangering humanity and the planet's future.

The climate and environmental catastrophe is alarming. It is the result of capitalism, of its predatory logic to always produce more and more, exploiting and destroying nature and human labor. All of this to reduce production costs and increase the profit rate.

Never in the history of Earth have climate changes been so rapid, which could lead to the extinction of much of the life on the planet, threatening the existence of humanity itself.

The climate catastrophe is caused by the enormous emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHG), resulting from the burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal), responsible for 75% of emissions. Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources. All of them have a huge energy density and, together, provide more than 80% of global energy. And all of them contain carbon, which is released into the atmosphere when burned. The burning of fossil fuels, since the Industrial Revolution, is what causes global warming. Both the carbon dioxide (CO₂) released by burning oil and coal, and the methane (CH₄) released by gas, increase heat retention in the Earth’s atmosphere.

CO₂ takes about 10 years to reach its maximum heat retention, but it remains in the atmosphere for centuries. Thus, current warming reflects past emissions, and current emissions threaten the climate of future generations in an irreversible way.

Cheaper and more profitable, the fossil fuel system expanded rapidly, freeing capitalism from energy constraints. This triggered a global productive expansion with the development of steam engines and the internal combustion engine. Fossil fuels reduced production time, increased productivity, and accelerated circulation, bringing distant regions closer and providing new resources to capital. In short, they allowed the Earth to transform into a single global economic organism.

The trail of climate destruction since the Industrial Revolution

But the catastrophic result was the rapid increase in GHG emissions. As we see in Graph 1, starting from 1850, the beginning of industrial expansion, there was a jump in the increase in the Earth’s surface temperature over the last 2 thousand years.

The peak of the fossil fuel economy was reached when oil and its derivatives became definitively the absolute energy base of capitalist development in the second half of the 20th century. It was only after World War II that the penetration of oil into energy systems became massive. While in 1913 oil provided 5% of the world’s energy, by 1970 it was responsible for 50%. This also meant even more GHG emissions into the atmosphere and, as seen in Graph 2, starting from the 1970s there was another significant jump in the increase of global temperature.

What stands out in this graph is that, starting in 2010, there was a new leap in the increase in temperature, recording for the first time an increase of more than 1°C compared to pre-industrial levels of 1850. Since then, the hottest years of the last 2,000 years have been recorded, with 2024 being the year when the temperature first exceeded the 1.5°C barrier.

Science warns that limiting warming to 1.5°C already means facing more severe climate changes. Humanity has never faced a crisis like this. Above 2°C, there is a risk of tipping points in the Earth system and a threat to coastal cities.

In 2024, a record was also set for global CO₂ emissions. In total, more than 374 billion tons of CO₂ were released into the atmosphere, despite warnings from the research.

In fact, we are facing the highest concentration of CO₂ in the last 800,000 years, as shown in Graph 3. A scenario never before experienced by humanity. As can be seen, there is a clear correlation between CO₂ emissions and the graphs on temperature increase.

Imperialist nations and the super-rich are responsible for this catastrophe

Throughout history, the countries that have emitted the most GHGs were the USA, China, Russia, and Brazil, as can be seen in Graph 4. It is also possible to see that other imperialist nations, such as Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Japan, also contribute significant emissions and, when combined, would easily surpass Russia and Brazil.

China’s industrialization and its emergence as an imperialist nation over the last three decades have made the country the largest annual emitter of CO₂ in the world. But a per capita analysis reveals a different reality: Chinese emissions were 7.41 tons per person, which is half of the 14.24 tons per capita of the U.S., highlighting disparities that reveal the enormous consumption of energy and resources by the world’s leading imperialist power.

According to a study published by Oxfam, the richest 10% are responsible for 50% of GHG emissions worldwide, as seen in Chart 5. The poorest 50% are responsible for only 8% of GHG emissions.

But the study also reveals that the richest 1% was responsible for the same carbon emissions as the poorest 66% of the world, who are 5 billion people. Therefore, not all humans are responsible for the climate catastrophe. It is just a handful of wealthy individuals who enjoy a life of luxury at the expense of nature’s exploitation.

This destroys the argument of the bourgeois ideologues who try to hold all of humanity responsible for the crisis. Blaming “humanity” in an abstract way obscures the real driving forces behind environmental destruction: the capitalist mode of production, power and class relations, and the oppression of race and gender that sustain it.

What are the consequences of climate collapse?

Science data shows that we are crossing the 1.5°C limit, heading towards a drastically more severe climate by the end of this century. If the temperature stays above 2°C, tipping points would be triggered and an irreversible domino effect would lead to the collapse of polar ice caps, rising oceans, and desertification of vast territories. At 3°C, the biosphere would collapse; at 4°C, it would trigger the sixth mass extinction, eliminating most mammals and acidifying the oceans.

The thaw would release ancestral viruses and bacteria, spreading unprecedented pandemics. Droughts and floods would make regions uninhabitable, creating millions of climate refugees. Global food production would collapse, accompanied by widespread water scarcity. This scenario, driven by a predatory mode of production, threatens to dissolve the foundations of our civilization, causing an unprecedented regression.