In a recent meeting, trade unionists heard that “there will be no global climate justice, no global just transition without the liberation of Palestine”. One example of this was that, “just in the first two months of the genocide in Palestine, the CO2 emissions by Israel were superior to the annual emissions of more than 20 nations in the Global South”.
Delegates at the meeting reaffirmed their solidarity with the Palestinian people, specifically through Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) energy embargo campaigns. But there was one speech in particular that absolutely everyone must listen to very carefully to understand the connection between Palestine and climate destruction.
Linking the energy transition and Palestine freedom in the union movement
Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) has brought unions and allies together since 2012 to advocate for:
democratic control and social ownership of energy, in ways that promote solutions to the climate crisis, address energy poverty, resist the degradation of both land and people, and respond to the attacks on workers’ rights and protections.
TUED South, meanwhile, launched in 2022 to mark:
a growing commitment among Global South trade unions to fight for an energy transition guided by planning, cooperation and a public goods framework.
In February this year, “120 union leaders and allies from 35 countries gathered in Mexico City for the Second Inter-Regional TUED South meeting”. And they had a session:
to review actionable strategy and reiterate the call on union leaders within the TUED network to stand in solidarity with the struggles of the Palestinian people.
But it was one speaker in particular who excellently summed up the importance of linking the fight for a just energy transition with the liberation of Palestine.
The Gaza genocide is a rehearsal for the Global North’s future treatment of climate refugees
Hamza Hamouchene is the North Africa programme coordinator at the Transnational Institute, “an international research and advocacy institute committed to building a just, democratic, and sustainable planet”. And he told the delegates at the TUED South meeting that:
It may feel misplaced or even inappropriate to talk about ecological and climate and energy questions in the context of genocide, displacement, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. But I would strongly argue that there are strong intersections between the ‘climate justice’ and the ‘just transition’ struggle with the ‘liberation of Palestine’ struggle. In fact, I would say that there will be no global climate justice, no global just transition without the liberation of Palestine.
He explained that:
Palestine in a way concentrates all the ugliness and the contradiction of the capitalist, imperialist system and it shows its general tendency towards more violence, more militarism, more war, and cruel use of outright violence.
And he added a powerful, poignant quote from Colombian president Gustavo Petro, who has been outspoken both on the climate crisis and Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Hamouchene noted that, at COP28:
Colombian president Petro said very strong words: ‘genocide and barbaric acts unleashed against the Palestinian people is what awaits those who are fleeing the South because of the climate crisis. What we see in Gaza is the rehearsal of the future.’ He is absolutely right. Because the genocide in Palestine is a harbinger of worse things to come if we do not organise and fight back vigorously.
Petro’s speech followed on by saying:
Why have large carbon-consuming countries allowed the systematic murder of thousands of children in Gaza? Because Hitler has already entered their homes and they are getting ready to defend their high levels of carbon consumption and reject the exodus it causes.
We can then see the future: the breakdown of democracy, the end, and the barbarism unleashed against our people, the people who do not emit CO2, the poor people.
Ruling classes have proven their willingness to sacrifice millions of people at the altar of profit and domination
Hamouchene continued by stressing that:
The global ruling classes and the Empire are already willing to sacrifice millions of black and brown bodies, as well as poor white working class, to maintain their profits, the accumulation of capital, and their domination.
They re “willing to fund genocide, to fund displacement”, he asserted. But the situation in Gaza is more than that, he added:
It is not just a genocide. A lot of analysts and researchers have been coming up with all these terms—from urbicide to domicide to epistemicide—but also ecocide. I think the most appropriate way, in my opinion, to describe what is happening is a holocide, which means the utter destruction of the social and ecological fabric of life in Palestine.
The death and destruction in Palestine and in other places around the world, he insisted, also show a deep connection between “the military-industrial complex” and “the ecological and climate crisis”. As he highlighted:
Just in the first two months of the genocide in Palestine, the CO2 emissions by Israel were superior to the annual emissions of more than 20 nations in the Global South…. Half of those emissions are due to the transport and shipping of weaponry by the United States, which shows the deep complicity in genocide and ecocide in that part of the world.
Imperialist control in the Middle East is key to ongoing climate destruction
Perhaps Hamouchene’s most powerful contribution, however, was on the central importance of Israel in securing US dominance in the oil-rich Middle East – a critical driver of climate change. Because he argued:
we cannot dissociate the struggle against US-led imperialism and global fossil capitalism from the struggle for Palestinian liberation
And he explained that:
US hegemony rests on two key pillars in the region and beyond. First, Israel as a Euro-American settler colony, which is an advanced imperialist outpost in the so-called Middle East. Israel is the number one ally of the United States and keeps US hegemony and domination of the region and control of its vast oil resources. The second pillar are the reactionary oil-rich Gulf monarchies.
Therefore, he insisted:
the Palestinian cause is not merely a moral human rights issue, but is fundamentally and essentially a struggle against US-led imperialism and global fossil capitalism. So basically, there will be no climate justice, no just transition without the dismantling of the deeply racist Zionist settler-colonial state of Israel and the overthrow of the reactionary Gulf monarchies.
So what do trade unions and allies need to do for Palestine?
In light of the above analysis, Hamouchene rallied delegates to support the transformation of words into action on Palestine. He said:
Colombia has shown the way when they stopped the export of coal to Israel. We need the same thing from South Africa. We need the same thing from Brazil, who provides around 9 to 10% of crude oil to Israel. We need the same thing from Nigeria, from Gabon, that still provide fossil fuels that are being used to massacre Palestinians—to fuel genocide, displacement, to fuel infrastructure of dispossession, to fuel the murderous F35 bombers and AI infrastructure that kills Palestinians by the day.
And he concluded that:
we need to stand together to push our own countries and our own trade unions to have a serious conversation about Palestine and how do we show concrete and active solidarity.
Backing the words up with action really matters
Brazilian speaker Andressa Oliveira Soares later backed Hamouchene’s call up by describing an energy embargo on Israel as “a matter of sovereignty for the Global South”. In Brazil, she said, pressure is increasing on the state to step in and take action. But at the same time, she pointed out, there are also some countries that maybe don’t sell products directly to Israel but do sell “flags of convenience” that facilitate shipments of resources to Israel.
Meanwhile, she asserted, there are companies that are “experts in stealing water from Palestinians”, which try to sell that expertise to governments in the Global South. Boycotting Chevron over its complicity with Israel’s crimes is another step unions and allies can take, she stressed, as are setting up Apartheid Free Zones, ensuring there is No Harbour For Genocide, and investing ethically.
Asad Rehman from War on Want and Friends of the Earth, meanwhile, argued:
this, I think, is a class war. Because what we’re seeing around the world is a war on the poor. We’re seeing a war on the planet. We’re seeing a war on workers. And we’re seeing a war on people that they see as being disposable—black, brown, and the poor—and the Palestinians are at the forefront.
He added that:
what’s happening on Palestine is also important for us. Because in the Global North, the reaction of the state to our protests has been to demonise us, to criminalise us.
And he said:
We’re seeing now also the same ‘walls and fences’ narrative that Israel has used in terms of the West Bank and Gaza and Palestine now being exported all over the world… the same technologies are being transplanted all around the world. And already Israel is saying, ‘This is battle-tested weaponry. This is battle-tested surveillance’ and already… selling it to some of our despotic regimes.
That’s why “we need a new internationalism”, he stressed, and:
the trade union movement has to be at the forefront of building and rebuilding a global anti-apartheid movement
