Contribution on united front webinar by Günther Bittel MLPD Germany

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My name is Günther Bittel, I am a doctor and environmental spokesman of the MLPD.

We are experiencing not only a new quality of world war preparation, but also the transition to global environmental catastrophe. The devastating flooding of one third of Pakistan followed by famine and epidemics exemplifies this. Heat waves with devastating forest fires and a major drought across most of Europe affected the entire continent for the first time this year. More and more tipping points of turning into the global environmental catastrophe are reached much earlier than predicted by the bourgeois climatologists. An end must be put to imperialism and its lawful destruction of the environment!

The Paris Agreement had already failed before, but since the beginning of the Ukraine war the environment is completely subordinated to the world war preparation. The German government, EU and U.S. imperialism are using the war as a pretext to roll back even minimal environmental protection measures. The EU pushes nuclear technology as alleged "bridging technology", in fact it is about material for nuclear weapons. Fossil fuel combustion is being ramped up without regard for the world climate, people or nature. Fracking gas is to be procured primarily from the USA, and corresponding long-term agreements have also been concluded with ultra-reactionary regimes such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The shifting of the burden of the crisis and the brazen breach of promise on the environmental issue are provoking protest and resistance, for example in the fight to end open-cast lignite mining and against the construction of LNG terminals.

In the face of the open world crisis, the new phase of accelerated destabilization of the imperialist world system and systematic confusion by the rulers, it is necessary to organize a broad consciousness-raising. Of particular importance is the development of the leading role of the working class. The environmental struggle must come together with struggles of the workers movement and the broad masses against the crisis program, against world war preparation, fascism and right-wing development to form a united front. The unmasking of the life lie of the alleged compatibility of ecology and capitalist economy must lead to a broad debate on socialism, to a strengthening of the ICOR. Let us make this year's Environmental Struggle Day November 12 a success in building an international front against imperialism, war and capitalist environmental destruction.