Statement by the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International
The month of August of 2026 saw the hottest day ever recorded. Heat records, longer and earlier heatwaves, violent phenomena such as typhoons, glacier collapses, and floods – disasters have become more frequent, intense, and deadly. Extreme weather events are set to worsen further under the influence of El Niño, exacerbated by global warming. The human, social, and health consequences are dire, both in the short and long term, bringing the threat of a worsening food crisis, the forced displacement of the most vulnerable populations, and a resurgence of infectious diseases.
This is not a passing phenomenon, but a manifestation of climate breakdown driven by a productivist capitalism inextricably linked to fossil fuels. It is now acknowledged that the 1.5°C global temperature rise threshold will be exceeded.
Leaders no longer contemplate preventing this threshold from being crossed; at best, they aim to limit it through highly dubious “techno-fixes”, while continuing to burn coal, gas, and oil. This is, of course, impossible!
Worse still, as their system reaches its limits, capitalists are seeking new profit opportunities in the agribusiness, arms, and artificial intelligence sectors. These are all major greenhouse gas-emitting and energy-wasting industries, responsible for the collapse of biodiversity and land grabbing at the expense of food sovereignty.
There is a very real threat of plunging into a cataclysm, of which current tragedies offer only a faint preview.
The rise of obscurantist, far-right, and climate-sceptic forces across the globe represents a qualitative shift—both in the acceleration of criminal policies and in the selective, racist, sexist, and colonialist forms of adaptation that benefit a privileged minority. In this sense, the struggle for climate justice and the anti-fascist struggle are inseparable.
It is now essential to combine adaptation and mitigation: that is, immediate protection against the harmful effects of climate breakdown for those hardest hit (the elderly, children, pregnant women, the chronically ill, etc.) alongside the fight against the root causes – fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, and industrial agriculture.
The Fourth International aims to help build an internationalist mass movement for social and climate justice.
This movement would work with those most directly affected to develop an emergency plan featuring concrete adaptation measures in areas such as disaster relief and population protection, housing, healthcare, employment, schools and hospitals, land-use planning, urban policy, water management, agricultural policy, and asylum—an adaptation that is public, democratic, socially conscious, and feminist.
We urgently need fully funded protective measures against wildfires, floods, and crop failures. We are fighting both the immediate effects and the root causes of ecological collapse.
Such a plan is inseparable from the struggle for a massive and rapid reduction in emissions—targeting the consumption habits of the wealthiest (private jets, super-yachts, etc.); by amplifying and combining various campaigns against useless and destructive projects (road infrastructure, AI data centers, extractivism, mega-projects for retail, transport, or sports facilities, etc.) and efforts to protect forests and wetlands; by campaigning for ecological and social demands such as free public transport and agroecology—not to mention reduced working hours and a slower pace of work—while demanding the disarmament of “climate criminals” in the finance, energy, and agribusiness sectors.
This movement must be linked to mobilizations against militarism and imperialism, and in support of solidarity with Palestine, agrarian reform, and working-class demands regarding the cost of living.
In a world engulfed in flames, we oppose the drive toward militarization led by capitalist states. We must focus our energies on the fight against climate change rather than wasting them fighting one another. The genocide in Palestine, the invasion of Ukraine, and the attack on Iran have all had devastating environmental consequences.
We oppose the climate denialism of the far right, which serves only the interests of its billionaire backers, ...the very people who build underground bunkers to survive ecological collapse while denying its existence.
We support freedom of movement. We stand in solidarity with all human beings forced to leave their homes due to war, poverty, and climate collapse. We also support the right of Indigenous communities to defend their lands against extractivism, pollution, and plunder. They should have the right to veto any project that threatens their lands, livelihoods, and culture.
We harbour no illusions about the COP process, yet these summits can offer an opportunity for the global movement to challenge capitalist politicians and major corporations. Scientists—including climatologists—are questioning technological fixes and the dogma of productivism and capitalism; they are valuable allies.
The Fourth International is launching a global campaign against data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence.
It encourages all its organizations to get involved in movements opposing these polluting infrastructures, which are voracious consumers of energy, water, and land.
This campaign is rooted in our communities and workplaces, mobilizing local residents, climate activists, and many others.
But beyond that, we are fighting the vision of society underpinning the development of artificial intelligence. AI enhances the State’s surveillance capabilities against the population and military capabilities against peoples. It exacerbates extractivism and the devastation it causes. It concentrates more power in the hands of the capitalist class at the expense of workers and peasants.
In an era marked by ecological collapse and the rise of far-right authoritarian capitalism, we need a mass movement with a programme of resistance that includes a strategy to wrest political power from the capitalists in order to build a different society—one that is good, truly human, and ecosocialist. We must therefore continue to popularize and enrich the Manifesto for an Ecosocialist Revolution.
We are fighting to put the ideas of our revolutionary manifesto against global capitalism into action: it is not merely a matter of challenging the capitalists, but of overthrowing them and building a better life for all, in a sustainable relationship with the Earth. We have a world to win!
12 October 2026