A provocative new manifesto calls for a global movement for ‘rupture’ to prevent the descent into climate chaos.

The people in power have now demonstrated beyond any doubt that they will do nothing to prevent climate breakdown: this is the rule of a plutocracy made rich by fossil fuels. The question that always confronts climate activists is whether we work to change the minds of those in power, whether we change who is in power or whether we change the nature of power itself.

The first option seems to have been exhausted. Donald Trump’s assault on democracy in the United States means that the world’s remaining superpower is controlled by a clique who seem detached from any reality – never mind the reality of climate breakdown. Joe Biden may have acknowledged climate science – but the Democrats nonetheless oversaw the production of more fossil fuels each year than any nation state in human history.

The same conclusion must also be drawn from recent British history. Recent events suggest that even the possibility of changing who is in power through voting for a new government within a representative democracy seems to have been removed. The oligarchs found common cause in eliminating any possibility of Jeremey Corbyn MP becoming a Labour prime minister, precisely because he advanced a Green New Deal which would have met the challenge of climate breakdown while creating a million well paid secure jobs.

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