On 6/6, the GS of the CC of the KKE, D. Koutsoumbas, spoke at an event on the environment and green growth in a park in West Athens, stressing, among other things the following:

“Like every year on the celebration of World Environment Day, the parties of the system compete with each other over which one can most effectively promote the EU’s green transition. (...) the sweeping advent of so-called green energy is evident all over the mountains of our country, from Alexandroupolis to Crete, from Epirus to southern Laconia.

Hundreds, thousands of huge wind turbines are springing up like mushrooms on the mountain tops, destroying forests, mountain ecosystems because they need thousands of cubic metres of concrete, thousands of kilometres of mountain roads that have to be opened, thousands of kilometres of new electric cables that run through forests and human settlements, literally destroying the environment. Now, after the mountains, the rocky islets,  the areas of immense cultural interest, the next target is the sea itself.

Respecting and protecting forests is another characteristic example. How environmentally friendly can a policy that year after year condemns thousands of acres of forest to burn down and be replaced by energy and tourism investments, be?

There is no end to their hypocrisy when it comes to protecting the environment. The supporters of the escalation of NATO’s military conflict with Russia in Ukraine, having tragic consequences for human lives and causing long-term destruction of the natural environment, are masquerading as sensitive environmentalists. Polluting US LNG, with its large negative environmental footprint, both during extraction and during its transport and re-gasification, was christened ‘green’ overnight! The same goes for nuclear power plants with their hazardous waste.

They also say that the mining, separation and polluting treatment of rare earths is ‘green’. The hypocrisy of the goal of allegedly limiting carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases is obvious when one considers that there are double standards. (...)

Unfortunately, however, capitalism is not ‘green’, it is pitch black. Nor can it ever reduce this negative impact on the environment.

The truth is that capitalism, by its very nature, sees the environment solely as a field of profitability. It uses the environment as raw material, as economic territory. That is why it cannot but destroy it. Industrial accidents, pollution, the relaxation of conditions for mining and tourist activities, the concreting over of every coastline in order to ensure its profitability, are proof of this.

Their aim is to proceed with a massive destruction of a large amount of invested capital, first and foremost in energy, transport, the means of production, and lastly in popular housing, in order to find an outlet for profitable investments for the over-accumulated capital of the monopoly groups. This is the essence of the ‘green transition’ policy. If we close down lignite plants, if we withdraw cars that run on petrol, if we replace all houses with new, energy-efficient ones, if we impose regulations on all industrial plants to  ostensibly protect the environment, they believe that promising avenues for the profitable investment of capital will open up.

Think how different the situation would be if the workers, the people, took control of power and the economy. Think how much better we could live if decisions about what, how much, where and how to produce, were not made based on capitalist profit, that is, based on the needs of the ruling class and the commitments of the EU and NATO.

This radically different situation has a name. It is the social ownership of the concentrated means of production, with scientific central planning and workers’ control; it is the radically different workers’–people’s state, the new society of socialism, which can secure the people’s welfare.

Only workers’ power, free from capitalist ownership of the means of production and the profit motive, can scientifically plan and develop production based on the overall needs of society. It is the active, daily role of the workers in the making, implementation and control of decisions.

As regards the energy sector, only the energy planning of socialism can utilize all of the country’s energy resources to eliminate energy poverty and unemployment, to reduce dependency on imports and to protect the safety of workers and the health of residents while ensuring minimal impact on the environment.(…)

The KKE calls upon all workers to reject all the parties of the notorious ‘green transition’, on EU policies and on all those who ask them to sacrifice their lives to secure the profitability of big capital. We call upon workers to reflect based on their experience and draw conclusions.

New Democracy, PASOK and SYRIZA are the flag bearers of this ‘green’ attack on the people’s income and needs. No party that promotes the plans for the ‘green transition’, the European Union and NATO, that submits to the aims of the ruling class, can create a better future for the people.

Hope lies in our own strength, in the organization of our own struggle. And the momentum of the people’s power, when they decide to take fate into their own hands, is very strong.”

08.06.2023