Call for global organisation and mobilisation against capitalism, a global system that is ecocidal and genocidal

We at Climate Debt strongly condemn Donald Trump’s recent threats against Iran, in which he warns of its total destruction if it does not submit to the will of the United States. These statements and the massive, indiscriminate bombings against the Iranian, Lebanese and Palestinian people are neither isolated incidents nor mere rhetorical excesses of a mad, far-right paedophile: they are the direct expression of a system which, in its current phase, can only sustain itself through war, plunder and the destruction of life.

Recent history confirms this reality. Both ‘Republican’ and ‘Democratic’ governments have resorted to extreme violence to safeguard the interests of capital, from the atomic bombing ordered by Harry Truman to the Joe Biden administration’s backing of the latest genocidal offensive against the Palestinian people by the terrorist state of Israel.

We raise our voices in solidarity with the peoples of Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Nigeria, Sudan, Yemen, Latin America and the Caribbean - especially Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Bolívia, Ecuador, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador - who today face various forms of imperialist aggression and counter-offensive: genocide, ecocide, bombings, blockades, sanctions, and financial, economic, military and political domination.

What unites these realities is not merely geography or the current situation: It is their position within a global system that requires entire peoples to be subordinated in order to ensure the accumulation of wealth by a tiny minority.

Historical experience compels us to organise and mobilise on an internationalist basis. The two world wars were inter-imperialist wars, driven by competition between commercial, industrial, military and, ultimately, financial monopolies, instigated by a global oligarchy seeking to carve up the world.

The owners of large corporations – in technology, property, mining, oil, banking and absurd amounts of money – do not produce wealth; they extract and accumulate it. They live off rent, speculation, debt, the exploitation of the Global Majority’s labour force and the destruction of Nature, and they need to expand constantly to sustain their rate of profit. Today we find ourselves in a similar situation, but with atomic bombs, autonomous weapons, Artificial Intelligence and the exceeding of nine of the seven planetary boundaries.

In our time, this expansion no longer occurs solely through direct colonisation, but through mechanisms such as debt. Entire countries are forced to restructure their economies to pay creditors, whilst in the imperialist centres themselves, the rights of the working class are being curtailed, common goods are being privatised and extractivism is intensifying. Thus, debt became a central tool of capitalist domination in the imperialist era, a form of modern colonialism and exploitation.

Imperialist aggressions are concrete manifestations of the contradictions of capitalism. They are not isolated conflicts: they form part of the same structure of global domination.

At the heart of this structure lies the petrodollar system, which enables the United States to maintain its financial and military hegemony. Control of oil, trade routes and global trade in dollars is not merely an economic issue: it is one of the material foundations of imperialist domination. That is why wars are concentrated in strategic regions to sustain the energy matrix of capitalist accumulation, and why those who attempt to break this order are threatened.

This system of boundless exploitation, accumulation and destruction is driving the climate crisis.

The environmental destruction currently threatening Earth’s ecosystems is not a ‘natural’ problem inherent to humanity as a species. The need to grow without limits, to extract more, to pay off debts and generate profits for a minority of capital rentiers drives the overexploitation of labour and nature. Whilst they speak of “transition”, the very same actors who promote false solutions are expanding extractivism, militarising territories and securing control over resources.

To the climate movement we say: it is not enough to demand reforms within the system. It is not enough to promote the energy transition. The struggle for life on the planet is inseparable from the struggle against capitalism.

It is now clear that the climate crisis cannot be halted without overthrowing these parasitic and predatory classes, putting an end to the law of profit and capitalist exploitation.

Faced with this situation, the world’s working class, the Global Majority, has common interests that are at odds with those of the minority. It is the working class that pays the price through its labour and taxes; it is the working class that suffers the consequences of wars, budget cuts to public goods and social services, precarious working conditions and the climate crisis.

We therefore call for:

• Opposing imperialist wars of aggression and supporting, in the same way, the resistance of peoples and the working class throughout the world.

• Challenging the public debt system through audits and debt repudiation.

• Actively joining the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment Movement against Israel and extending it to all its allies.

• Building an internationalist organisation from the bottom up.

Today more than ever, it is necessary to advance the building of an international force capable of challenging the foundations of the system, because what is at stake is not price stability as the news programmes would have us believe, but the future of humanity.