3713. A Contribution to the Discussion of the Guardian's "Open Letter" on Iran

By Kamran Nayeri, August 30, 2026

Protest on the 40th day since the death of Mahsa/Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian who died after being arrested by the morality police in Tehran on September 22, 2022. 

On August 20, The Guardian published an Open Letter, “To Iran’s political prisoners, trapped ‘between two blades of a scissors’”, by 23 prominent leftists mostly from the United States and Western Europe: “We write to you from a place of deep solidarity, our hearts heavy with the knowledge of the struggle you face within Iran’s prisons: the torture, the systematic neglect, the enforced silence, and the brutal reality of sham trials and executions.”

The authors go further:

“And we stand in solidarity with you, as you are at the intersection of two sources of oppression.

“On one side, you face the Islamic Republic that, from its inception, enforced absolute social and political control based on an exclusionary ideology. It is a system that claims to counter imperial power while using its very logic of domination and systems of carcerality, torture and execution.

“On the other side, you face the aggression and violence of the very imperialist and Zionist forces the Islamic Republic purports to stand against.” (my emphases).

The Open Letter has ignited a much-needed public discussion.

This essay contributes to this discussion by examining aspects of the twin problems of how to defend Iran against imperialist and Zionist aggression while fighting for the release of political prisoners in Iran.  

As an Iranian American socialist since 1971 who participated in organized Iranian socialist movement (1975-1982) and organized socialist movements in the U.S. since 1982, I have firsthand experience in defense of Iranian political prisoners as well as participating as a leader of the Iranian Trotskyist movement and a co-founder of the Workers Unity Party in the Iranian revolution (1979-82) with the goal of helping the Iranian working people to form their own government based on their own grassroots organizations, in particular the workers and peasants shora (council) movements.

To proceed, I'll cite some notable earlier contributions focusing on the “scissors” analogy that frames the Open Letter.

Vijay Prashad, the executive director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, in “Against the False Symmetry of the Scissors: An Open Letter While Iran Resists an Illegal War of Aggression,” criticizes the “scissors” analogy:

“The central image, two blades of a scissors, is evocative but erroneous. It suggests that one of the blades is the Islamic Republic and the other blade is the United States and Israel, with the Iranian people being cut by the two of them. The error of the scissors is not merely that its blades are unequal. It is that the image makes the aggressor and the attacked appear as parallel sources of the same danger, stripping away the history and hierarchy that connect them. US imperialism is not simply one oppression alongside another. It is the force that has encircled Iran, devastated the region, armed Israel, imposed sanctions upon an entire population, and now brought war to Iranian territory. Your letter places the aggression and its target in the same moral frame.” (emphasis added)

Thus, the political framework Prashad uses is what was called Third Worldism in the 1960s and later “anti-imperialism,” which frames the main problem Iranian working people face as imperialism rather than the clerical capitalist Islamic Republic. Indeed, he considers the Islamic Republic regime (which he identifies with Iran as the country) to be an anti-imperialist force facing off against United States imperialism and Israeli Zionism. Thus, he praises the Islamic Republic policy of forming what they call the Axis of Resistance.

Farah Mokhtareizadeh, in “Who Names the World? Anti-Imperialism and Iran's Political Prisoners,” correctly points out:

“Prashad’s argument becomes more difficult when he moves from geopolitical asymmetry to political timing. There is a time to make demands and a time to act in solidarity, he suggests, implying that certain demands upon the Iranian state should recede while imperial war continues. The difficulty is that prisoners live both dangers in the same present tense. An execution sentence does not pause for war, and a prison door does not unlock because the state holding the key confronts a greater external power. The question becomes not whether Iranian repression exists but whether Iranians must postpone naming or resisting that repression until some safer political moment arrives.”

She notes that the scissors analogy was used by Keyvan Mohtadi, a labor activist and former political prisoner, on June 24, 2025, the day after Israeli bombing of Evin Prison, about the political prisoners held inside, including his wife, the labor organizer Anisha Asadollahi.

Thus, Mokhtareizadeh shows how opposition to imperialist and Zionist war and freedom of political prisoners are intertwined and reinforcing. 

The false scissors analogy

At the same time, Mokhtareizadeh’s example shows that the scissors analogy betrays political confusion among a considerable section of the left regarding Iran since the 1979 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-installed dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.  There can be no doubt that the clerical capitalist Islamic Republic and imperialism oppress the Iranian working people. However, were they not oppressed by Mohammad Reza Shah’s dictatorial regime and imperialism before the 1979 Iranian revolution?  Of course they were, as the 1979 revolution was anti-dictatorial and anti-imperialist. The scissors analogy refers to the fact that the 1979 revolution overthrew the U.S.-installed regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and because of the weakness of the working class and socialist movements, put the power in the hands of ayatollah Khomeini, who proceeded to create the Islamic Republic, which is independent of imperialism, by crushing grassroots movements of the working people unleashed by that revolution.

The 1979 Iranian revolution threatened the dominance of imperialism, Zionism, and reactionary Arab regimes in the Middle East. Contrary to the dominant view propagated by both the Islamic Republic and imperialism, the 1979 revolution was not an Islamic Revolution. It was an anti-dictatorial, anti-imperialist, national democratic revolution aspiring to democracy, freedom, and social justice.

However, the Iranian people who lived under dictatorship had no chance to discuss what kind of society, economy, or state they wished to create after they overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty.  The labor movement, especially oil workers, played a significant role in the revolution, but it was politically unprepared to lead the revolution. The left was largely influenced by Stalinism, the ideology that envisioned a national democratic movement led by an anti-imperialist leader. The Tudeh Party held the totalitarian Soviet Union as the Actually Existing Socialism, and pro-China Stalinists (Maoists) held a similar view of the revolution. What is more, Stalinism of the Iranian socialist currents trained them as an undemocratic force. Here is an example: right after the victorious insurrection of February 9-12, two groups of Iranian Trotskyists merged in the Socialist Workers Party.  They planned to hold their first public meeting at Tehran Polytechnic (now Amir Kabir University) in central Tehran. A group of Maoists, Communist Union اتحادیه کمونیست ها), physically attacked and disrupted the meeting. The reason was Stalinism. Both Moscow and Beijing continued Stalin’s campaign against Trotsky and Trotskyism until the Soviet Union collapsed and China became the world's leading capitalist power! Meanwhile, Iranian labor and socialist movements never made defending democratic and political rights their central concern. Thus, when Khomeini declared mandatory Islamic dress for women who were government employees, the protest in Tehran included a rally in front of Tehran University and a march to Azadi Square, which was attacked by semi-fascist Islamic gangs and drew only 20,000 mostly younger women (at the time, Tehran had 3 million people). The labor movement and many leftist groups did not mobilize to participate in or defend it.

Political Islam and the Axis of Resistance

Thus, the power people took by months of mass struggle and three days of armed insurrection across the country was handed over to Ayatollah Khomeini, who began to institutionalize the theocratic capitalist Islamic Republic. In the early 1970s, while in exile in Iraq, Khomeini wrote a pamphlet titled Velayat-e Faghih (the rule of Islamic Jurists). He argued that Muslims everywhere are ruled by non-Muslims and demanded the formation of an Islamic government ruled by Islamic Jurists. The 1979 revolution gave Khomeini that opportunity to establish it in Iran, which he was able to do by deceit and by bloody repression.

Of course, consolidating the Islamic Republic required destroying grassroots movements of working people, including the workers’ shora (council) movement resulting from the 1979 revolution, suppression of oppressed nationalities, systematic oppression of women, as well as any independent political party. Thus, the 1979 Iranian revolution was destroyed through bloody repression by the clerical capitalist Islamic Republic, not by imperialism! (Nayeri, 2025, Chapter One, Chapter Two, pp. 51-56).

However, Khomeini’s vision required expanding the Islamic Republic's power among Shiites in the Middle East. This led to the formation of the Axis of Resistance. This created a new form of confrontation with imperialism and Zionism over their domination of the Middle East and their decades-long struggle to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Prashad mistakes this trajectory for anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism.

Rejecting Dependency School politics

By now it must be clear that how to stop imperialist and Zionist attacks on Iran and at the same time fight for Iranian people’s political rights, especially through building a movement to free all political prisoners, requires theoretical certifications. The “anti-imperialist” framework reflects the dominance of Dependency School (DS) in the 1950s and 1960s, which waned in the 1970s.

In the post-World War II period, anticolonial revolution swept much of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It raised questions about their development. The Dependency School (DS) refers to a group of different theories that shared the idea that the backwardness of the periphery of world capitalism was due to imperialism. Thus, those who subscribed to DS theories framed their political theories on “anti-imperialism.” At the same time, Latin American nationalist economists formulated the initial DS theories (Nayeri, 2023B, Chapter 3), two prominent socialist dependency theories emerged: Paul Baran's Political Economy of Growth (1957; for a critique see Nayeri, 2023B, Chapter pp. 82-118) and Arghiri Emmanuel’s Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade (1972, for a critique see Nayeri 2023B, Chapter 4).

However, DS theories did not jive with Marx's historical materialism, which focuses on modes of production and relations of production to understand society and history. Instead, both Baran and Emanuel focus on imperialism as an external force and the sphere of circulation to explain the periphery's economic backwardness.

By the late 1970s, the DS school began to decline as countries in the periphery of capitalism industrialized, beginning with South Korea and, by the new century, China, which is now outcompeting the United States as the leading world capitalist economy.

Thus, Parshad’s outdated, mistaken DS framework leads him to support the expansionist policies of the clerical capitalist Islamic Republic in the name of “anti-imperialism.”

From Marx’s point of view, capital is self-expanding value. Thus, capital will outgrow its geographical location, and each capitalist state would protect its capitalist interests outside its borders. That is sufficient to explain the economic basis of wars, including World War I and World War II.  In fact, Hilferding’s claim in Finance Capital (1910) that an era of finance capital (later called monopoly capital) and Marx’s labor theory of value, his theory of how the capitalist mode of production functions, is obsolete was based on his mistaking Marx’s theory of competition as being similar to the neoclassical theory of Perfect Competition (Nayeri, 2023B, pp. 11-45). Thus, Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), based largely on Hilferding’s work, is also mistaken. At any rate, in the same work Lenin identifies imperialism with the export of capital from advanced capitalist states to the periphery and views this as developing the forces of production there.  Thus, DS socialists have been wrong both in constructing their theories and in claiming they are Marxist.

Questions of program, strategy, and tactics

Still, many socialists would agree that the defense of the political prisoners in Iran must be put in the context of U.S. imperialism and Israeli Zionism to attack Iran.  This does not mean that defending democracy and freedom of political expression is subordinate to requirements of fighting imperialism and Zionism. In fact, I would argue in a moment that the two are intertwined and complementary. That is, the Islamic Republic has for almost half a century undermined effective struggle against imperialism and Zionism by attacking individual, democratic and political rights in Iran.

The authors of the Open Letter write: “The Iranian authorities must stop their inhumane practice of death and incarceration now. And the US and Israel must end their barbaric wars and brutal sanctions that knowingly devastate our communities.” This formulation in the Open Letter leaves out the “regime change” agenda of imperialism and Zionism untouched. Not only was regime change the stated goal of the U.S./Israeli war against Iran, but it is the active foreign policy of the Trump administration, as we saw in Venezuela and now see in Cuba. What Trump was able to achieve in Venezuela was what has been called “the shortest war in history”: Nicolas Maudura and his wife were abducted, and Delcy Rodríguez, his vice president, agreed to govern in accordance with Marco Rubio's instructions in Venezuela (Pager and Kurmanaev, July 11, 2026). Neither should we stand quiet when the U.S. and Israelis assassinate leaders of the Islamic

Republic.

The public and the left in the West have failed to actively oppose Israeli genocide in Gaza backed by the U.S. and European imperialist powers! Why would it be any different in the case of sanctions and war against Iran that have been unfolding since the 1979 revolution?

The key question the Open Letter raises is how can a massive enough anti-war movement be built to stop the U.S./Israeli war against Iran?  At the same time, how can an effective movement be built to stay the hands of the clerical capitalist Islamic Republic?

The answer to the first question depends on mass radicalization among working people and youth. No sign of it on the horizon, although nobody really knows how and when such radicalizations unfold.

The answer to the second question largely depends on the working people and socialist currents in Iran for the simple reason that the Islamic Republic continues to enjoy a mass base in Iran that has gone along with its repressive policies.

To overcome this obstacle, a principled anti-imperialist vision to uphold the sovereignty of the Iranian people is the necessary framework for advancing the goals of enhancing political space in Iran and freedom of political prisoners.  

Building a movement of the working people in Iran to challenge the Islamic Republic

The great masses who made the Iranian revolution of 1979 aspired to democracy, freedom, independence, and social justice. Ayatollah Khomeini destroyed grassroots movements that aspired to this vision to install the clerical capitalist Islamic Republic. We need to take up those aspirations and develop them to address the needs of Iran and the world in the twenty-first century.

Earlier I argued that the Islamic Republic is NOT anti-imperialist, that it opposes U.S. imperialism and Israeli Zionism from the narrow vision of Islamic fundamentalism.

As socialists, we need to oppose imperialism and Zionism because they are manifestations of capital as self-expanding value, thus, the capitalist mode of production, mixed with ideologically backward colonial notions. The United States imperialism is the expression of Manifest Destiny, and Zionism is the colonial-settler ideology of occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Thus, to defend the sovereignty of the Iranian working people, socialists in Iran must oppose the U.S./Israeli war with a program of action of their own in sharp contrast to the current policies of the Islamic Republic. I would propose the following for discussion among Iranian working people.  A key lesson of the 1979 revolution was that people were united on what/who they did not want but not on what kind of society and economy they wanted and how it would be run.  

I propose the following as a conversation starter.

• ·       Freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of religion, especially for the oppressed nationalities, women, and defenders of nature. End all forms of oppression of women; for empowerment of women in all levels of society and the state. For individual freedom. For culture and art for everyone. 
• ·       Freedom for working people to establish their own organizations, such as unions and shoras.  Jobs for all.  For minimum wages and salaries tied to inflation; for an affordable life consistent with human development for all. For an end to child labor. Free quality public education for all. 
• ·       Freedom of all political prisoners. End all forms of torture and capital punishment now!
• ·       No arbitrary arrests, presumption of innocence until proven guilty by a jury of one’s peers, and the right to due process. Dissolve the Islamic courts.
•       Separation of religion and state; the right of the people to vote and to elect the representatives of their choice.
• ·       The right to form committees of people's representatives that would be responsible to the people themselves and not to the state.
• ·       The right to arm the people and organize a people's militia; dissolve all repressive armed forces of the Islamic Republic.
• ·       The right of the mass organizations of the people to administer all the affairs of the towns and provinces.
• ·       The right to liberation and voluntary cooperation of all the peoples and nationalities living in Iran. The right of self-determination of oppressed nationalities.
• ·       The right of Iran to political and economic independence from imperialism.
• ·       For workers’ control and management of all state industries and all enterprises that refuse to serve the interests of their workers and the working people in general.
• ·       For a constituent assembly organized by the movements of working people to draft a new constitution. For a workers’ state. 
•         For solidarity with oppressed people and nations; for a democratic secular Palestine where Palestinians and Jews and others live together as equals.  
• ·       For the right to clean air and water. For the rights of nature to prosper without human exploitation. For an economy and society free of nuclear hazard and fossil fuels. For a green economy.  For a society at peace with itself and at peace with nature

The future Iranian revolution needs to be an ecological socialist revolution because of the existential world ecological crises: catastrophic global warming and climate change, the Sixth Extinction, recurrent pandemics, and nuclear holocaust. I propose Ecocentric Socialism as a vision to aspire to (Nayeri, 2023A, especially Chapter 19).

Building a movement to free all political prisoners in Iran

My experience in a successful campaign to free political prisoners in Iran dates to the 1970s, as in the Committee for Artistic and Intellectual Freedom in Iran (CAIFI). Formed in New York in 1973 to defend Reza Baraheni, the well-known Iranian author, poet, and literary critic of Azeri origin, and a founder of the Writers Association of Iran, who was arrested, tortured, and held in prison. CAIFI challenged the ultra-left sectarian view of the Confederation of Iranian Students (dominated by Maoists and nationalists), who did not believe political prisoners could be freed through mass work, and in some cases they did not even consider defending political prisoners they did not hold to be “revolutionaries.” CAIFI, by contrast, believed in defending all political prisoners regardless of ideology, selecting a few prominent political prisoners to draw public attention to the plight of all political prisoners and building the broadest possible coalition through democratic organizational methods. CAIFI won over the support of some prominent liberal and leftist Americans, including Kay Boyle, Daniel Ellsberg, Ramsey Clark, and Angela Davis, a former political prisoner and signer of the Open Letter, who supported CAIFI.  CAIFI gained momentum when, under international pressure, Baraheni was released, traveled to the U.S., and agreed to be a keynote speaker at CAIFI-sponsored events, attracting even more support for its campaigns.  In just a few years, CAIFI became the most successful defender of the Shah's political prisoners.  CAIFI's mission was finally accomplished when the February 1979 revolution freed all the Shah's political prisoners.

CAIFI was formed in the United States, the main supporter of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's dictatorship, where public opinion mattered. The Islamic Republic’s mass base is inside Iran. Thus, it is necessary to build a defense committee inside Iran, building on CAIFI and other successful defense efforts.

References:

Nayeri, Kamran. Whose Planet? Essays on Ecocentric Socialism. 2023. 

___________. Toward a Theory of Uneven and Combined Late Capitalist Development. 2023.

___________. Between Dreams and Reality: Essays on Revolution and Socialism. 2025.

Pager, Tyler and Anatoly Kurmanaev. “How Marco Rubio Is Running Venezuela From Afar.” The New York Times, July 11, 2026.

3707. Catastrophic Global Warming and Climate Change: An Overview of the Crisis and How to Stop It

By Kamran Nayeri, August 3, 2026   

Overlap between future population distribution and extreme heat demographic projections to ∼2070. The shaded areas depict regions where minimum average temperature exceeds 29 °C, while the colored topography details the spread of population density.

As I am writing this essay on July 31, 2026, Canada, France, and Spain are all experiencing catastrophic wildfire seasons, but the fires have somewhat different characteristics. The striking common denominator is extreme heat and dryness associated with climate change, interacting with local vegetation, drought, wind, and human ignition sources. As I am writing, the region I live in in northern California is covered with smoke from the Woodside Fire near the Pacific Ocean, which ignited yesterday at 1:30 in the afternoon and is still burning.

In this essay, I will provide basic information from authoritative sources about the catastrophic global warming and climate change these fires exemplify and point to the policies needed to address them. To understand global warming and catastrophic climate change and how to stop them is not an option but a necessity for the survival of humanity and much of life on Earth.

What Is Global Warming and What Causes It?

The atmosphere is currently more than 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than preindustrial times.

Scientists attribute the global warming trend to the human expansion of the "greenhouse effect" (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-IPCC, 2022), a warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space.

Life on Earth depends on energy coming from the Sun. About half the light energy reaching Earth's atmosphere passes through the air and clouds to the surface, where it is absorbed and radiated in the form of infrared heat. About 90% of this heat is then absorbed by greenhouse gases (GHGs) and re-radiated, slowing heat loss to space and causing the atmosphere to warm.

What Are Greenhouse Gases?

Greenhouse gases are a category of gases that absorb heat energy emitted from the planet's surface, and they remain in Earth's atmosphere for a long time (from decades to centuries). Though they make up less than 1% of all air molecules in the atmosphere, GHGs absorb a significant amount of heat energy and re-radiate some of it back toward the surface. They're called "greenhouse gases" because they trap heat near the Earth's surface in a manner somewhat like how a greenhouse allows in the sun’s rays and then holds in the resulting heat

By adding more GHGs, chief among them carbon dioxide and methane, to the atmosphere, humans are causing average global temperature to rise at an unprecedented rate. Earth has warmed up by an average of 0.11°F (0.06°C) per decade since 1850, or about 2°F (1.1°C) in total. Let’s recall this process began with the English Industrial Revolution 1760–1840 and has continued ever since with the spread of industrialization worldwide. 

The most important greenhouse gases, listed in order of their impact on the greenhouse effect, are:Water vapor (H₂O), carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), and ozone (O₃).

Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas, while carbon dioxide is the most significant in terms of human activities and climate change mitigation efforts. While water vapor emissions have been relatively stable over the long term, studies show they have been increasing in recent decades due to global warming and climate change (Allen et al. al, 2022; Dong et al., 2022).

In its Sixth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, composed of scientific experts from countries all over the world, concluded that it is unequivocal that the increase of CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere over the industrial era is the result of human activities and that human influence is the principal driver of many changes observed across the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere.

In recent decades, the average atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) has been increasing from around 330 parts per million (ppm) in the 1970s to 340 ppm in the 1980s, to 360 ppm in the 1990s, to 380 ppm in the 2000s, to 400 ppm in the 2010, and 420 ppm in the 2020s, with a record high of 442.7 ppm in 2024.  Methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) have also been showing substantial increases.

If annual emissions continue to increase as rapidly as they have since 2000, climate models project that by the end of this century global temperature will be between 2.7°F (1.5°C) warmer than the 1901-1960 average, and possibly as much as 7.9°F (4.4°C) warmer, which would be catastrophic to humanity and much of life on Earth.

Sources of carbon dioxide emissions are:

• Fossil Fuel Combustion: This includes burning coal, oil, and natural gas for electricity, heat, and transportation, which is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions globally.
• Agriculture: Agricultural practices, particularly livestock production, release significant amounts of methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) due to enteric fermentation and fertilizer use.
• Deforestation: The clearing of forests for agriculture or urban development reduces the number of trees that can absorb CO₂, contributing to increased atmospheric carbon levels.
• Industrial Processes: Manufacturing and chemical production release various greenhouse gases, including CO₂ and fluorinated gases, which have a high global warming potential.
• Waste Management: Landfills produce methane as organic waste decomposes anaerobically, while waste treatment processes can also emit greenhouse gases.

The most basic reason is that fossil fuels, the equivalent of millions of years of plant growth, are the only source of carbon dioxide large enough to raise atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts as high and as quickly as they have risen.

How Does Global Warming Cause Climate Change?

Global warming causes catastrophic climate change by altering weather patterns characteristic of the Holocene geological epoch.  This epoch began approximately 11,700 years ago, following the last glacial period known as the Pleistocene. The Holocene is characterized by a relatively stable climate that has allowed farming and the development of human civilizations. Catastrophic climate change is undermining the stable weather patterns of the Holocene. Some geologists have argued that the Earth has entered the epoch of the Anthropocene (The Age of Humans). Climate change is primarily driven by the greenhouse effect, where gases like carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane trap heat in the atmosphere. This process enhances the natural greenhouse effect, leading to higher temperatures. As temperatures rise, certain feedback mechanisms, such as reduced ice cover and increased water vapor, further amplify warming. For instance, melting ice reduces the Earth's albedo (reflectivity), causing more solar energy to be absorbed.

Consequences of Global Warming and Climate Change

Global warming and climate change affect virtually every aspect of the Earth system: the atmosphere, oceans, ecosystems, economies, and societies. They cause extreme weather, such as higher temperatures, leading to more frequent and severe hurricanes, droughts, and heavy rainfall. They cause ecosystem disruption: Changes in climate affect biodiversity, leading to shifts in species distribution and habitat loss. This feeds another existential ecological crisis, the Sixth Extinction: Current extinction rates are estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction (Ceballos et al., 2018; Cowie et al., 2022; De Vos et.al., 2014). They also cause sea Level rise: Melting polar ice and thermal expansion of seawater contribute to rising sea levels, threatening coastal communities.

Many consequences reinforce one another through feedback loops. Below is a systematic overview with examples.

1. Rising temperatures

Average global surface temperature has risen by about 1.3–1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, although warming varies by region. Examples include record-breaking heat waves in Europe (2022–2025), temperatures above 49°C (120°F) in parts of western North America, and longer and hotter summers in southern Europe and the Middle East.  Consequences include heat-related deaths, lower labor productivity, and greater electricity demand for cooling (causing more GHG emissions).

2. More frequent and intense heat waves

Heat waves are becoming longer, more frequent, and more severe. Examples include India’s recurring spring heat waves, the U.S. Pacific Northwest “heat dome” (2021),  Mediterranean heat waves. Consequences include heat stroke, crop damage, infrastructure failures (roads buckling, rail tracks deforming

3. Melting glaciers

Nearly all mountain glaciers are shrinking. Examples include the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, and Alaska. Consequences include reduced freshwater supplies, increased glacier lake outburst floods, and loss of tourism.

4. Greenland and Antarctic ice loss

Massive ice sheets are losing hundreds of billions of tons annually. Consequences include sea level rise lasting centuries and permanent loss of coastal land. Sea level has risen roughly 20–25 cm (8–10 inches) since 1900 and is accelerating. Examples include Miami flooding during high tides, Pacific island nations threatened, and coastal inundation in Bangladesh. Consequences include coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion into groundwater, and displacement of millions.

5. Sea level rise

Sea level has risen roughly 20–25 cm (8–10 inches) since 1900 and is accelerating. Examples: Miami flooding during high tides, Pacific island nations threatened, Bangladesh coastal inundation.  Consequences: Coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion into groundwater, displacement of millions. Sea level has risen roughly 20–25 cm (8–10 inches) since 1900 and is accelerating. Examples: Miami flooding during high tides, Pacific island nations threatened, Bangladesh coastal inundation. Consequences: Coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion into groundwater, displacement of millions.

6. Stronger storms

Warmer oceans provide more energy for tropical cyclones. Examples include Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Ian, and Typhoon Haiyan. Consequences include greater rainfall, larger storm surges, and more infrastructure damage

7. More extreme rainfall: A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor. Examples include Germany floods (2021), Pakistan floods (2022), Vermont flooding (2023), Afghanistan flood 2026.  Consequences include flash floods, landslides, and urban flooding

8. More severe droughts

Some regions experience prolonged drying. Examples include the Western United States megadrought, Horn of Africa drought, and Mediterranean drying. Consequences: Crop failures, water shortages, hydroelectric power losses

9. Larger wildfires

Hotter, drier conditions increase wildfire risk. Examples include Canada (2023), Australia's Black Summer (2019–20), and California fires. Consequences: Loss of forests, air pollution, and property destruction.

10. Ocean warming

More than 90% of excess heat enters the oceans.  Examples include heat waves and warmer North Atlantic temperatures. Consequences include Coral bleaching, fish migration, and stronger hurricanes.

11. Ocean acidification

Oceans absorb carbon dioxide, making seawater more acidic. Examples include coral reef acidification and bleaching, and oyster hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest. Consequences include weakened shells, reduced reef growth, and food web disruption.

12. Coral reef collapse

Repeated marine heat waves kill corals. Examples include Great Barrier Reef bleaching and Caribbean reef decline. Consequences: Loss of biodiversity, reduced fisheries, and lower tourism revenue.

13. Permafrost thaw

Frozen soils are thawing across the Arctic. Examples include Siberia, Alaska, and Northern. Consequences include Methane release, infrastructure collapse, and ecosystem changes.

14. Biodiversity loss

Many species cannot adapt quickly enough and die off. Examples: Amphibian declines, Arctic species under stress, and Alpine plants disappearing. Consequences: Local extinctions, simplified ecosystems, reduced resilience.

15. Species migration

Species move toward the poles or higher elevations. Examples include fish moving northward, birds changing migration timing, and insects expanding ranges. Consequences: New ecological competition. Altered food webs.

16. Agricultural impacts

Climate affects yields differently across regions. Examples include wheat losses during heat waves, coffee production moving uphill, and vineyard relocation. Consequences: Lower yields, food price increases, and greater volatility.

17. Water insecurity

Changing precipitation alters water availability. Examples include Colorado River shortages, Himalayan glacier-fed rivers, Cape Town water crisis. Consequences: Competition among agriculture, cities, and ecosystems.

18. Food insecurity

Climate stresses global food systems. Examples include crop failures in East Africa, fisheries decline, and livestock heat stress. Consequences: Higher food prices, increased malnutrition, humanitarian crises.

19. Human health impacts

Climate affects health through multiple pathways. Examples include heat deaths, smoke inhalation, and spread of infectious diseases. Consequences: More cardiovascular illness, respiratory disease, mental health impacts

20. Spread of infectious diseases

Changing climates alter habitats for disease vectors. Examples include Dengue fever expanding, malaria reaching higher elevations, and Lyme disease moving north.

21. Air quality deterioration

Higher temperatures worsen ozone formation and wildfire smoke. Examples include smoke from Canadian wildfires affecting eastern North America, and increased urban ozone episodes.

22. Economic losses

Climate damages infrastructure and reduces productivity. Examples include billion-dollar disasters in the United States, insurance losses, and agricultural losses.

23. Climate migration

People relocate because of environmental change. Examples include Pacific islands, Bangladesh, and the Sahel region.

24. Increased conflict risks

Climate does not usually cause wars directly, but it can intensify existing tensions. Examples include water disputes, farmer–herder conflicts, and resource competition

25. Infrastructure damage

Climate affects transportation, utilities, and buildings. Examples include rail buckling, airport runway damage, and flooded subway systems.

26. Energy system disruption

Climate influences both energy demand and supply. Examples include higher summer electricity demand, reduced hydropower during drought, and transmission failures during heat.

27. Loss of benefits from ecosystems

Natural ecosystems provide benefits that support human well-being. Examples include pollination, water purification, and flood protection by wetlands

28. Cultural losses

Climate threatens places and traditions tied to particular environments. Examples include Arctic Indigenous environmental cultural practices, Pacific island cultural heritage, and historic coastal communities.

29. Financial instability

Climate risks increasingly affect financial systems. Examples include rising insurance premiums or insurer withdrawals from high-risk regions, and declining property values in flood-prone areas.

30. Positive feedback loops

Some climate changes accelerate further warming. Examples include Arctic sea ice loss reducing Earth’s reflectivity (albedo), leading to more heat absorption; thawing permafrost releasing methane and carbon dioxide; and forest dieback reducing carbon storage.

Who Is Responsible?

To stop global warming and catastrophic climate change, let us ask who is most responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases.

The top ten countries responsible for greenhouse gas emissions are as follows:

• China - The largest emitter, contributing approximately 30% of global carbon dioxide emissions, with around 11.4 billion metric tons in 2022.
• United States - The second-largest contributor, emitting about 6.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2021.
• India - Responsible for roughly 3.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, accounting for about 7% of global emissions in 2021.
• European Union (EU) - As a collective, the EU member states contribute significantly, though individual country emissions vary widely.
• Russia - A major emitter to global greenhouse gases.
• Japan - Known for high emissions due to industrial activities.
• Germany - One of the largest economies in Europe, contributing notably to emissions.
• Iran - A significant emitter, largely due to its oil and gas industry.
• South Korea - High emissions from industrial and energy sectors.
• Indonesia - Notable emissions primarily from deforestation and land-use changes.

While China is the top polluter, it also has the largest population in the world, 1.4 billion people.

Another way to look at which countries are most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions is to look at the top five countries on a per capita basis. They are Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia; all are also major exporters of oil and gas.  

Thus, if two dozen countries of the world are held accountable for greenhouse gas emissions and they stop such emissions, it goes a long way toward stopping global warming.

Why Have World Governments Proved Unable to Stop Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

There is a clear correlation and causation between industrialization and burning fossil fuels, beginning with the English Industrial Revolution 1760–1840, as the following graph shows.

Fossil fuels have been essential for capitalist industrialization due to their role as a primary energy source. Fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas, have powered industrialization worldwide. Their accessibility and energy density made them the backbone of economic development, facilitating mass production and transportation. Despite being the world leader in the production of renewable technologies, China is still the largest producer and consumer of coal and coal power in the world. China produces approximately 4.8 billion tons of coal per year, over half of the global total.

Governments subsidize fossil fuels. In 2024, globally, explicit (or fiscal) subsidies were $725 billion (0.6 percent of GDP). Implicit subsidies, primarily underpricing of environmental costs, were $6.7 trillion (5.8 percent of GDP), with three-quarters from underpriced air pollution and climate change (Black et al. al, 2025). 

Now, if we consider capitalist competition, once some group of capitalists began utilizing these high-energy sources, others had to follow to remain viable in the market. This has created a cycle of dependency that reinforced their use across industries and countries worldwide.

Thus, fossil fuels have been a fundamental building block of the anthropocentric industrial capitalist civilization, which includes the bourgeois idea of a good life even among the working people. To replace them will require a radical questioning of capitalist modernity and the anthropocentric industrial culture, and the present bourgeois idea of a good life based on consumerism. 

Two economic forces deepen capitalist firms' addiction to fossil fuels. The first is the negative externalities of burning fossil fuels because emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) do not factor in the cost of production.  Second is moral hazard, which occurs when a firm or government is protected from the full costs of burning fossil fuels, so firms and governments have an incentive to behave more recklessly or irresponsibly than they otherwise would.

A case in point is the Paris Agreement negotiated by 196 parties at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference near Paris, France. Each government pledged to devise ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions voluntarily. There was no enforcement mechanism.  Thus, every government had an incentive to let others take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while it continued to pollute. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions increased 9% between 2015 and 2024, driven by rising energy demand from data centers and industrialization, as reported by McKinsey & Company.

What Is to Be Done?

The worldwide spread of capitalism and industrialization required the ever-increasing use of fossil fuels. human population has exploded 800 percent since the start of the use of fossil fuels. Capitalist development requires ever more production and consumption of commodities, increasing global per capita energy usage over time. Life today in a typical city looks profoundly different from daily life in 1820.  Modernity would never have happened without an unprecedented abundance of energy.

Capitalist societies are dependent on evermore economic growth because production is for profit and evermore growth provide ever more mass of profits. However, ever more production will require evermore consumption, regardless of whether it is for human needs. Thus, capitalist economies are dependent on population growth to provide workers (producers) who are also the bulk of the consumers. That is why capitalist politicians promise economic growth and prosperity.

All this make for evermore consumption of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases.

That is why some the U.S. war on Iran is a war for control of the Middle Eastern oil and gas. Even the establishment of Israel was to secure Western imperialism's domination of the Middle East. 

Unless greenhouse gas emissions stop, climate science tells us it can become self-sustaining once one or more tipping points are reached. A tipping point is a critical threshold that, when crossed, leads to large, accelerating, and often irreversible changes in the climate system. If tipping points are crossed, they are likely to have severe impacts on human society and accelerate global warming.

Key climate tipping points include: Greenland Ice Sheet Collapse, West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse, as significant melting could lead to accelerated sea-level rise; coral Reef Die-Off, as warming oceans and acidification threaten coral ecosystems, impacting marine biodiversity; Boreal permafrost thaw, which releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas, exacerbating climate change; Monsoon system changes that cause alterations in monsoon patterns can affect water supply and agriculture in many regions.

The only effective method is to force governments to enact enforceable legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a post-carbon economy and society, and to change our lifestyle in ways to reduce and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. This is only possible if a politically independent mass movement of working people forces the government’s hand.

However, this has not happened anywhere in the world yet. In the U.S., a main polluter, on September 21, 2014, the People’s Climate March in New York City, with more than 310,000 people and hundreds of contingents, was a great success. The organizers report that 2,807 similar actions took place in 166 countries during that weekend (Nayeri, October 1, 2014). However, the leadership of the movement fell to Bill McKibben, a journalist by profession, who helped organize 350.org, the main organization in the movement to stop global warming. However, McKibben originally believed he could convince the fossil fuel companies to cease production. Later, he offered self-criticism and argued the movement should instead focus on electing politicians who support the transition to renewable energy, which happens to be largely Democratic politicians, to lobby nationally and locally for the same end. He combined this with “direct action” like chaining himself to the gates of a refinery.

Margaret Klein Salamon and Ezra Silk organized The Climate Mobilization, who believed the U.S. needs an emergency mobilization like the effort organized by Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in World War II to transform the U.S. economy. The problem again was that to do so they wanted to rely on capitalist politicians (Nayeri, September 3, 2016). In 2018, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez was elected to the House of Representatives, and she campaigned for what she called a Green New Deal (GND) to stop global warming and climate change. At the time, she managed to get a large following among the left Democratic Party supporters as well as socialists and ecosocialists. Her GND was built on a left-liberal bourgeois vision and political platform, as I analyzed in detail (Nayeri, March 25, 2019).

Without an independent politically minded working people’s movement, it remains up to individuals to adopt lifestyles that avoid emissions of greenhouse gases. Currently, about 5%-7% of households have rooftop solar photovoltaic systems. In 2026, renewables supply roughly 27-30% of U.S. electricity generation, so the average household’s electricity mix contains about that proportion of renewable energy, although it varies widely state by state, which amounts to about 5% of home energy use. However, the “renewable” sources for this type of energy generation include burning wood, which releases greenhouse gases.

In brief, the U.S. falls very short of any serious effort to stop catastrophic global warming and climate change.   

Ecocentric Socialist Proposal for Fighting Climate Catastrophe 

Currently, mass consciousness about the causes of catastrophic global warming and climate change, and what, if anything, to do about it, is low.  We need to help educate, organize, and mobilize the working people as an independent political force to stop this catastrophe. 

Currently, most of the world's greenhouse gases are emitted by the following countries and the European Union in the order of total emissions: China 27-30%, United States 11-13%, European Union 6-8%, Russia 5%, India 7%, Indonesia 3%, Brazil 3%, Japan 2-3%, Iran 2%. 

Annual snapshots can be misleading because CO₂ lingers in the atmosphere for centuries. If we add up all emissions since the start of the English Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700s, the United States has contributed more cumulative CO₂ than any other nation. The EU (as a 27-country bloc) ranks second, with China in third place. The United Kingdom and India round out the top five. 

Global CO₂ emissions average just under five metric tons per person per year. However, per capita emissions of oil-producing Gulf states and high-income countries far exceed that average. The United States, Canada, and Australia typically emit between 14 and 18 tons per person annually. China, despite its massive national total, sits closer to 8 tons per person. India remains well below the global average at roughly 2 tons per capita. Each Indian citizen contributes a fraction of what an average American or Australian does.

Clearly, stopping catastrophic global warming and climate change requires a worldwide mobilization of the working people, especially in most countries, to transcend the anthropocentric industrial capitalist civilization in the direction of an Ecocentric Socialist future (see Nayeri, July 4, 2021, May 1, 2022). Here is an outline of an action program for the climate movement in the U.S. which I proposed in 2015 (Nayeri, June 26, 2015). 

For an emissions tax with subsidies to low-income people

The climate movement can enhance its effectiveness by focusing its campaigns on the key countries and the European Union that are responsible for more than 70% of greenhouse gases. Climate Club

Early industrializers in the West and Japan, as well as China, should take the lead because of the former's historic responsibility and the fact that China’s pollution is largely driven by industrial production for the West, which makes China the leading emitter today. The climate movement should demand that they honor and exceed these intentions by creating a Climate Club through adopting meaningful emissions (or, if appropriate, carbon, as in the case of Indonesia because of its forest clearing) taxes with subsidies to low-income people. 

Emissions tariff and Climate Change Assistance Fund

Key to the international success of emissions taxes is that Climate Club countries impose import tariffs on leading emitters who are not yet in compliance. The combination of emissions, tax and import tariffs will benefit any country that joins the Climate Club and make it unfeasible economically not to join it.  All such tariffs should go to a Climate Change Assistance Fund that gives assistance to the countries most affected by climate change and least able to face it alone and to help them transition to a post-carbon economy. 

How to proceed

In sum, I believe it is high time for each organization in the climate movement to discuss this and other policy proposals in their general meetings. What to do about climate change is too important to leave to politicians, bureaucrats, technocrats and business interests who routinely place corporate and economic interests before the health of the planet and all who live on it.

Whenever we plan for protest actions, various participating groups propose demands or slogans close to their own vision. There is usually harmony with the directions and goals of the climate movement.  However, it is time to strive for greater unity by adopting a clear and concise policy of our own on how to combat climate change. 

The policy proposals here will run into opposition by many politicians, bureaucrats, and corporate leaders. However, the climate movement is a political movement precisely because we must overcome such opposition with our ever-more powerful mobilizations and unity in action.  Who else will design and implement solutions to the climate crisis if not the climate movement?  Some of us, including this author, will argue that to resolve the climate and other existential ecological crises, we must transcend the anthropocentric industrial capitalist civilization in the direction of an ecological socialist society.

However, nobody subscribes to the idea that effective policy to combat climate change must wait for the downfall of capitalism. In fact, it is the reverse.  Only through building a mass climate movement can forge and force an effective climate policy in the womb of the existing capitalist world order can we take genuine steps to transcend it. 

We can win the fight to reverse 250 years of greenhouse gas emissions if enough social forces are organized and mobilized in key countries and across the world.  It requires a clear understanding of policies, strategies, and tactics that can achieve our goal.  Of course, we will continue with campaigns to end fracking, tar sands oil, exploration in particularly dangerous locations, coal trains and bomb trains.  But emission taxes with subsidies to low-income people and formation of a Climate Club that imposes import tariffs on major emitting countries and provides assistance to the countries of the Global South to cope with climate change and transition to a post-carbon economy will be a powerful complement that will unify the movement across the world and point the way forward. 

References:

Allen, Richard P., Kate M. Willett, Viju O. John, Tim Trent. “Global Changes in Water Vapor 1979–2020.” JGR Atmospheres.  June 2022.

Black, Simon,  Weronika Celniak, Alberto Garcia Huitron, Ian W.H. Parry, Paulina Schulz Antipa, and Nate Vernon-Lin. "Underpriced and Overused: Fossil Fuel Subsidies Data 2025: Update." International Monetary Fund. 2025. 

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_____________. "The Climate Movement Should Demand: 'Tax Greenhouse Emissions with Subsidies for Low-Income People." Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. June 26, 2015.

_____________. “Making Progress: A Critical Assessment of Climate Action Plans by Bill McKibben and The Climate Mobilization.” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. September 3, 2016.

_____________. “A Future for American Capitalism or The Future of Life on Earth?: An Ecosocialist Critique of the "Green New Deal." Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. March 25, 2019.

_____________. “The Case for Ecocentric Socialism.” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. July 4, 2021.

_____________. “On Degrowth.” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. July 22, 2021.

_____________. "Socialism in the 21st Century: Why It Is Needed and Some of Its Salient Features." Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. July 22, 2021.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). WG1, Summary for Policy Makers, Section A, “The Current State of the Climate;” IPCC 6th Assessment Report, WG1, Technical Summary, Sections TS.1.2, TS.2.1 and TS.3.1.