Like every summer, the heatwave hits. These heatwaves are becoming more frequent, longer, and with ever-increasing temperatures each summer. No slowdown in these heatwaves is in sight, since at the same time, we must continue to produce more, pollute more, solely for the benefit of capitalists!
Capitalism is a deadly economic system that plays a key role in accelerating climate change. Its operation is inherently predatory, destroying our land and our bodies, and plundering our resources to accumulate them in order to maintain its productivist logic.
The people who bear the brunt of this climate crisis are always the same: precarious workers, people with disabilities, people of colour, not to mention those in nursing homes or prisons. Working conditions, worsened by the extreme heat, are clearly not evolving quickly enough to adapt to workers’ needs, and once again, it is the most vulnerable who suffer: undocumented construction workers, women in precarious employment in public services… Every year we count our dead. In 2025, the heat killed 5,700 people. The 2026 death toll will undoubtedly be higher due to the succession of heat waves.
Energy-inefficient buildings, freezing in winter and scorching in summer, are still not a priority for the government, which prefers to fund missiles rather than renovate our homes. Regulatory constraints are being relaxed for landlords who rent out their properties. Schools are still waiting for equipment to cool students, and hospitals provide undignified conditions for staff and patients. But faced with the climate emergency, we see only inaction from successive governments: cuts to the Green Climate Fund and housing renovations.
Faced with the government’s inaction on climate change, we have wasted too much time and crossed too many lines. We now have no choice: we must adapt. But as always, we are not all equally equipped to adapt.
When young people from a working-class neighbourhood decide to open fire hydrants to access a little relief from the heat, they are met with repression fuelled by racism. But what solutions exist when indoor temperatures are unbearable, when installing air conditioners in social housing is prohibited, and when shaded areas and swimming spots are virtually nonexistent due to urban sprawl and concrete development? How can we justify depriving ourselves of water to reserve it for intensive agriculture, private swimming pools, golf courses, and data centre?
Every day we can only observe a little more clearly that the goals of the Paris Agreement will not be met. This is hardly surprising; the grand meetings between capitalists and governments serve only to defend their interests, those of the bourgeoisie, which are opposed to ours. As heat waves become the norm and climate chaos our daily reality, it becomes vital to consider the end of capitalism before the end of the world.
What if the only viable alternative was a libertarian communist revolution? Only through self-organised collective action can we break with capitalism, find solutions adapted to these temperatures, and halt global warming. Climate emergency: collective organisation!
Union Communiste Libertaire.