By Aris Telonis for DiEM25.
The Paris Agreement is a historic landmark of our times. But it is not an overstatement to argue that there are scientific or journalist reports on climate change almost daily. Despite all this media attention, the scientific debate and the political debate remain separate. This is outlined in the recent Nature editorial: political plans are not very transparent and are not widely backed up and endorsed by scientific reviews. This distance between politicians and scientists is also echoed with regard to the public sphere: “we” are the informed progressives and “they” are the ignorant and dangerous people.
The deeper roots of the climate problems, however, are not addressed: capitalism. Unfortunately, scientists still fail to realize it.
The war against climate change is not a war fought simply by changing dramatically our own habits or enforcing stricter rules. It is a fight to eliminate the unrestricted profits and impunity of oil and coal capital. As long as the energy system remains for-profit, any fine-tuning policies will only succeed in addressing the manifestations of the problem, not the roots of it.
As DiEM25 Advisory Panel member, Naomi Klein remarked in her 2014 book, “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate”, climate change is a “battle between capitalism and the planet.”
We need to build wide and broad coalitions to bring change in the system. We need to organize with you and listen to you. Time is running out.
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