Workers face a perfect storm

The El Niño effect contributed to high temperatures that made 2024 the world’s hottest year on record (Pic: Picryl / Pixabay)

The United Nations is warning that the world should brace itself for more extreme weather. 

This year is very likely to see the return of the El Niño phenomenon. 

The term El Niño refers to warmer sea surface temperatures in the Pacific. But its effects are global. 

The natural weather pattern leads to drought conditions in some parts of the world and torrential rain in others. 

In Britain, it is associated with hotter summer temperatures, colder winters and heavy winter rain. It could lead to heatwaves and flash flooding that infrastructure in Britain is unprepared for. 

In 2023-4, a particularly strong El Niño effect contributed to high temperatures that made 2024 the world’s hottest year on record. 

The effects of the El Niño phenomenon combine with the impacts of climate breakdown to drive extreme weather. 

“El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world,” says UN secretary general António Guterres. 

And this year the ongoing effects of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on fuel and fertiliser prices will create a perfect storm that will drive up food insecurity. 

A report earlier this year found that water scarcity and soil degradation are already reducing crop yields, raising prices and impacting the availability of food worldwide. 

In Britain, farmers have faced hundreds of millions of pounds worth of crop losses following a very dry spring in the lead-up to last week’s heatwave. 

Food prices are expected to be 50 percent higher this November than they were five years ago. We are already feeling the impact at the supermarket checkout. 

We were told that the market would save us from rising food prices. If crops fail in one part of the world, Britain could import them from somewhere else. 

But, when climate breakdown and extreme weather impact every part of the globe and there is a worldwide scramble for food and fertiliser—this no longer looks like a viable strategy. 

Yet, while workers endure a pay squeeze, the super-rich are accumulating unprecedented wealth. According to the Equality Trust charity, the 157 billionaires in Britain have amassed collective wealth of £670 billion. That’s equivalent to 22 percent of the country’s GDP. 

Workers shouldn’t have to pay for the crisis caused by the greed of the fossil fuel companies. 

Strikes are answer to rising prices

The cost of living crisis is deepening amid Donald Trump’s war on Iran, profiteering bosses and the effect of extreme weather shocks on food prices.

If the left and unions don’t give a lead, the far right will grow out of the demoralisation and whip up scapegoating against migrants and refugees.

The Labour government wants to appease the bosses by pushing for austerity 2.0. We should demand radical measures. 

A cap on the price of food and fuel is an urgent necessity, as well as measures to tax the rich and stop firms profiteering. 

Workers don’t have to sit on the sidelines and watch as costs go up and wages stay down. 

RMT transport union members have shown their power by shutting down London with their strikes this week. 

And there is the potential to push for action on pay. Resident doctors in the BMA union have already announced further strikes over pay, jobs and defending the NHS.

UCU union members in further and higher education are calling for nationwide action. Unison is set to launch a ballot of local government and school support workers in the summer.

The doctors are set to walk out for four days from 7am on 15 June—shower their picket lines in solidarity and invite them to speak at your trade union meeting.

Socialists in the trade union movement have to organise now and push for strikes this year at every opportunity.