The huge spillage of oil in the Gulf of Mexico was an accident waiting to happen, as this brief comment from an ex-oil worker points out. It shows quite clearly that our environment cannot be left in the hands of a greedy, money-grabbing coterie of capitalists who own and control the means of production.

For many people, the idea of a revolutionary change in society seems like a pipe-dream that will never be possible in their lifetime. In this respect, Trotsky developed the idea of the “Transitional Programme”: a set of demands that could take society from our current situation under capitalism, towards our final goal of international socialism. What would such a transitional programme look like for the environment? What set of demands should socialists make regarding the climate change? In this article, we attempt to outline such a programme.

Capitalism has no solutions to the environmental problems facing humanity and our planet. International treaties that attempt to operate within the confines of capitalism are also doomed to failure, as was seen in Copenhagen last year. Capitalism cannot solve these problems – capitalism is the problem.

On Saturday, after two weeks of negotiations, the Climate Summit in Copenhagen ended in a complete failure. The outcome of the talks, a document known as the “Copenhagen Accord”, is merely a collection of hollow and vacuous statements, and does not contain any reference to a legally binding agreement.

The dramatic collapse of the talks at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen serves to highlight one thing: the capitalist governments of the world cannot solve burning issues, such as damage to the environment provoked by the anarchy of the market. The thirst for profit is in direct contradiction to the interests of the working people of the world. Social revolution on a global scale is the only real answer to the problem.

At a recent meeting of a local Labour Party Branch in Worcester, Britain, a slick high tech presentation was given by a group called Transition Worcester, who said they had the answer to the environmental crisis. It is to turn the clock back 200 years to a mythical age where all trade was local and people enjoyed the benefit of locally grown meat, fruit & veg. Within this presentation were ideas such as we should no longer trade with developing countries and we should therefore export our unemployment to the third world.