In three weeks, from October 31 through November 12, representatives of the world’s governments will officially gather for global climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland for the 26th annual Conference of the Parties (COP26). These “representatives” do not represent the billions of people now facing a bleak future, if they have a future at all; no. They rule over these masses, representing the interests of capitalism-imperialism while they compete and contend with other oppressors and exploiters. The last major COP was in 2015 in Paris, when these governments agreed to develop voluntary plans for reductions of emissions of greenhouse gases (the gases which intensify global warming) for the first time. The conference in Glasgow is being hailed as the most important since Paris, and it is coming at a time when humanity is confronting an intensifying environmental crisis unprecedented in human history.

The Paris agreement of 2015 was hailed as a huge advance, but this has turned out to be a cruel lie. Many studies over the years and up to now show that emissions have continued to rise year after year and no country except The Gambia, the smallest country in mainland Africa, is now on a path which would contribute to a world in which climate change stays below dangerous levels. Beyond that, many governments have already submitted the plans that they will be carrying out after Glasgow. If the plans and promises the governments are proposing were actually carried out, we would still be on a pathway to 2.7 degrees of heating, nearly twice the target beyond which catastrophic change will occur—for the planet and for humanity, affecting billions of people globally.

The system of capitalism-imperialism has ravaged the earth, shredded crucial ecosystems, driven many species to extinction, and continues to inject massive quantities of carbon and other greenhouse gases into the air, driving the temperature of the atmosphere and oceans higher and higher. Storms, droughts, extreme heat and cold lash the planet, and there is a real danger of this system undermining the foundation of human biological existence on this planet. What is urgently needed is system change to deal with climate change.

The eyes of the world will be focused on Glasgow. Massive protests are planned in Glasgow—and around the world—to draw attention to and reverse this catastrophic course the world is on. In this dire and urgent situation, it is extremely important for people to join in these calls for action.

Even more crucially, people must confront and bring forward the real scientific truth: this system and its rulers are utterly incapable of being caretakers of the planet, they can—and will—only continue to destroy humanity’s only home. We need an actual revolution, overthrowing this system of capitalism-imperialism and establishing a genuine socialist society with a radically different economic and political system! Nothing less offers any chance of a future for humanity and the planet. To get a fuller sense of a genuine socialist society—and how this would address the environmental crisis—go to the CONSTITUTION for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian (BA), and to “Some Key Principles of Socialist Sustainable Development.”

Stay tuned to revcom.us over the next few weeks as we cover all of this. We are initiating coverage with a Resource Page  focused on this existential challenge confronting humanity—and what it will take to deal with it, for real!