Whether a reactionary simpleton like Trump or a centrist like Mark Carney, world leaders are accelerating the climate catastrophe in the service of profit, explains John Clarke

Both the Trump administration and the Canadian government of Mark Carney are playing enormous roles in exacerbating a planetary climate disaster. It is bitterly ironic and horribly fitting, then, that both the Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa on 1 July and the Fourth of July events in various US cities were disrupted by extreme weather events linked to global heating. In the clearest way possible, the climate chickens have come home to roost.

Reuters reports that a ‘dangerous heat wave upended Fourth of ​July celebrations across swaths of the central and eastern US on Friday, forcing officials in the nation’s capital and elsewhere to cancel ‌or postpone dozens of parades, concerts and fireworks displays.’ Moreover, among the ‘events disrupted by the sweltering heat was the Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, a centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s efforts to mark the nation’s 250th birthday.’ Trump’s speech had to be delayed and the turnout for the event was far below expectations.

According to the CBC, the patriotic festivities in Ottawa were thrown into disarray when ‘extreme weather caused the cancellation of Ottawa’s evening Canada Day activities, including the fireworks display, as homes flooded, roads were closed and thunderstorms led to power outages.’ Scheduled events were dramatically curtailed when ‘electronic billboards advised attendees to seek shelter. As heavy rain and winds lashed the area, people ran to vacate the park, video posted online showed.’

Fossil-fuel capitalism

Donald Trump has impeccable credentials as a climate denier and a champion of reckless and unrestrained forms of fossil-fuel capitalism. Last September, as reported by PBS News, he told the General Assembly of the United Nations that, ‘This “climate change”, it’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.’ He added that all scientific predictions of worsening climate impacts ‘were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.’

Trump is often accused of empty bluster but there is no denying that he has been ready to act vigorously to put his views on climate change into effect. From a report from Reuters, we learn that in 2025: ‘Including emissions from the energy sector ​and from gas flaring and methane, global emissions rose by 1.1% to ⁠41 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The U.S. accounted for 36% of that increase, with ​total emissions growth of 3.2% year-on-year, compared with 0.3% in China.’

Mark Carney wouldn’t want to be associated with the crude brand of climate denial that Trump peddles. Though he is best known internationally as a former central banker, he held the position of UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance between 2019 and 2025 where he functioned as a veritable apostle of green capitalism, arguing that responsible action on climate was in the best interests of the major companies and investors.

Today, however, as the prime minister of Canada, Carney is charged with task of developing a strategy that will enable Canadian capitalism to survive the sharp turn to protectionism and trade war that the Trump administration has undertaken. As part of the drive to maximise profits, which he considers essential, he has worked vigorously to promote the most destructive forms of fossil-fuel extraction, turning his back on any commitment to responsible environmental stewardship.

As reported by the CBC, ‘Prime Minister Mark Carney has invited 100 of the world’s biggest investors to a summit in Toronto this September.’ This gathering will be ‘part of a broader effort to draw global investment back to Canada as the world grapples with deeper uncertainty and global volatility.’

The Business Council of Canada, speaking for some of the country’s major employers, predictably approved of this undertaking but, in doing so, it applied a little pressure. Its CEO stated that: ‘If we don’t get our resources out of the ground expeditiously in an investment-friendly regulatory climate, we are going to miss this window one more time.’ Carney can be trusted to take that advice to heart and to work to ensure that the extractive industries have as free a hand as possible.

Leaving no room for doubt, Carney declared that he has chosen explicitly to repudiate earlier Canadian commitments to meet particular targets with regard to the reduction of carbon emissions. The CBC reports that Carney posted a video on 30 June in which he stated that in ‘my judgment, that plan was not sustainable over the long term … It would have been too expensive for Canadians. Canadians who are already struggling with affordability.’

Rather ominously and in a rather Trump-like fashion, Carney went so far as to suggest that his destructive course was in the ‘national interest’ and that those who opposed it could be regarded as an ‘enemy within.’ He told his audience that the ditched plan ‘would have been too divisive for our country’ and that it should be considered ‘an open opportunity for those people who wish to pull Canada apart both at home and abroad.’

Trump may be a cornerstone of the authoritarian right and Carney a political operator who likes to give things a progressive spin but, when push comes to shove, their approaches to the threat of global heating are remarkably similar.

Unfolding catastrophe

The disruption of two patriotic North American festivals by extreme weather demonstrates lividly that the unfolding climate catastrophe has already advanced to a very dangerous level. Heatwaves are clearly intensifying horribly, as we can see at the moment in various countries.

On 26 June, The Guardian noted that the ‘heatwave scorching western Europe is the most severe and widespread ever and is only possible due to the climate crisis driven by fossil fuel burning, scientists have said … Almost half of Europe’s 850 largest cities are also enduring their worst ever heat stress, a combination of temperature and humidity, they found.’

In assessing this unprecedented situation, an extreme weather research associate at Imperial College London commented that this ‘event would not have been possible in June without climate change. But do we expect this to be a cool summer going forward? That’s absolutely the case.’

At the same time, on the Pacific coast of Canada, the province of British Columbia, which has tended to have very moderate summer temperatures, is facing a comparable situation. The CBC reports that 21 communities in the province have just experienced temperatures that match or exceed previous heat records.

Throughout large swathes of the Global South, extreme heat is placing enormous sections of the population under enormous stress and things are on track to get much worse. A CNN article in 2024 noted that by 2050, ‘India will be among the first places where temperatures will cross survivability limits, according to climate experts.’

It is perhaps worth pausing to take stock of that incredible prediction which, in light of present developments, hardly seems alarmist. There is compelling evidence that within less than twenty-five years, when children being born today are still young adults, elevated temperatures in one of the most densely populated countries on earth may reach levels that are not compatible with the preservation of human life.

Those who choose to dismiss the ‘empirical evidence’ of the worsening impacts of climate change must also reckon with the simple fact that atmospheric CO₂ levels have increased and continue to increase. The Mauna Loa Observatory continues to record these levels and its findings are horrific.

On 5 July of this year, CO₂ levels reached a record of 430.15ppm, up from 428.37 one year previously. The relentless pace of the increase of these levels can be seen from the fact that, as recently as 1990, atmospheric CO₂ had only reached 372.23 ppm. Presently, atmospheric CO₂ ‘is higher now than at any time in the past 200,000 years of human history.  In fact, studies of past CO₂ levels have accumulated evidence of CO₂ levels being lower than 400 ppm for the past 23 million years.’

In dealing with the subject of climate change, I have pointed out many times that the profit needs of capitalism and its defining drive to accumulate render it incompatable with the goal of sustainability. Still, it is profoundly shocking to live through the worsening planetary climate disaster and witness the obdurate refusal of the political decision makers to take the basic steps that our survival rests upon. Whether they are reactionary simpletons like Trump or more sophisticated players like Carney, they are simply caught on the same treadmill.

With every passing month, ever more dreadful and compelling evidence emerges of the fatal trap that the economic and social system we live under has become. The class struggle has become a matter of survival and the creation of a rational and sustainable socialist society is now a question of life and death.