Adapting to Climate Change: From Capitalism to Democratic Eco-Socialism

The climate crisis is growing worse. Efforts to mitigate climate change have failed to stem the growing production of the greenhouse gas pollution that has created and exacerbated it. This failure is largely attributable to capitalism, including its current neoliberal form, and its continued addiction to fossil fuels. Consequently, there have been growing calls to ramp up efforts to help communities and countries, especially the world's poorest, adapt to the inevitably worsening impacts of climate change. It is unlikely that adaptation policies premised on capitalism will be any more effective than capitalist-oriented mitigation policies. Instead, what is required is "transformational change" premised on alternative socio-economic assumptions that put environmental sustainability, social justice and economic equity before material growth and profit-seeking. Mainstream analyses of transformation rarely move beyond recommendations for changing prevailing ideas regarding nature, coupled with upscaling renewable energy, while slow-rolling the transition away from fossil fuels. This leaves untouched the prevailing institutions of national and global societies that are blocking a rapid path to sustainability and an effective response to climate change. In contrast, democratic eco-socialism offers a transformative alternative with much greater potential to enable fair and effective adaptation to the future impacts of climate change.