Fossil-fuelled capitalism locks in irreversible warming: CO₂ records reveal systemic climate debt
Original framing: “Greenhouse gases hit record highs, yet again” — Phys.org
The current CO₂ levels (424 ppm in 2025) mirror the *Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)*, a 56-million-year-old event caused by volcanic CO₂—yet the *1980s ‘carbon budget’ calculations* by NASA’s James Hansen were dismissed as ‘alarmist’ until corporate lobbies could no longer suppress them. The *1992 Rio Earth Summit*’s ‘Common but Differentiated Responsibilities’* principle was gutted by the *2001 Marrakech Accords*, shifting blame to ‘emerging economies’ while the Global North’s historical emissions (20% of 1850–2020 CO₂) went unaddressed. The *1979 Exxon internal memo* (‘CO₂ will alter climate’) was buried until 2015, proving how corporate capture of climate science is a *structural* not incidental feature.
The WMO’s ‘record highs’ headline performs a *double erasure*: it treats CO₂ as a *natural* phenomenon rather than the *corporate-engineered* outcome of 150 years of fossil capitalism, while obscuring how *colonial extraction* (e.
g., oil from the Global South) and *neoliberal trade deals* (e.g., CPTPP) have *structurally* locked in this crisis. The solution lies not in incremental ‘green’ reforms but in *three radical pivots*: (1) *Climate reparations* to dismantle historical debt, (2) *Indigenous-led drawdown* to restore ecological balance, and (3) *degrowth economics* to shrink the overshooting economy. The *trickster* here is the *‘business as usual’* narrative itself—a fiction maintained by *corporate lobbying* and *institutional inertia*, where ‘records’ are treated as surprises rather than the *predictable* result of *unchecked power*. The path forward demands *reparations, autonomy, and systemic shrinkage*—not another round of *‘net-zero’ greenwashing*.