2026 has seen droughts cover England, and fires sweep across the Cairngorms. Again, the climate movement has been shouting that it is time to realise the dangers of climate change, and seize opportunities we have to make a difference. Every year wasted is a historic failure.
Whose failure is this? What does it mean for the left in Scot land and globally? How will climate change shape the politics of our progressive movements, in particular the trade unions and environmentalists? What do we have to win in this struggle, and what do we have to lose? These are the questions which we hope to raise in this special issue.
The demand for a Just Transition originated from the trade union movement. In Scotland, it has been integrated successfully into climate debate and policy. This is the result of decades of work to bring climate change to the centre of trade union attention, and link it with the struggles on working conditions and the cost of living crisis.
However, we cannot ignore the failures of the transition so far. In the same period of increased co-operation, the contrast between fine words from government and the actuality of unjust transitions for fossil fuel workers have tainted the reputation of the term ‘just transition’. As increasing numbers of workers and communities feel abandoned, there are those who would take advantage of rightful anger and disillusionment to push division and denialism. If the threat from the right is to be met, we need clear eyes and open dialogue to meet those impacted by an unjust transition where they are, to grasp the realities of what they are experiencing and feeling in a political environment that offers them so little.
The left at large has recognised the centrality of climate change (and nature more broadly) to the prospects for a prosperous future, indeed for any future at all. However, it has been slow to assert publicly what is blindingly obvious to most readers: that only socialist solutions which transfer control and ownership away from private corporations can possibly secure that future prosperity.
The climate crisis is a crisis of capitalism and for capitalism. The failure to act is a failure of its system of ownership, governance, market control and regulation – not of individual consumers or workers. An economic system destroying the environment sustaining it, and us, must be replaced – the choice which we confront is still between barbarism and socialism.
The breadth of people and organisations working on the Just Transition is one of our strengths. Differences in perspective must be utilised as an asset, not a weakening of collective strength. We must never forget who and what we are fighting for, the fundamental political principles that guide our work, and that unity always has and will be the most valuable part of collective liberation. We want this edition to help activists in trade unions, climate campaigns and left organisations to find common ground and work together towards a shared movement.
Our issue starts with Ewan Gibbs, who explains how the current unjust transition has enabled the far-right’s toxic nostalgia for the good old days of extraction, but that this cannot hide that oil and gas in Scotland is facing an inevitable decline. Miriam Brett continues our exploration by looking at the increasing fiscal challenges the Scottish Government faces in an age of climate breakdown, and its “managed downward trajectory” which is putting us on a destructive path. Matthew Crighton looks back at ten years of building an alliance between the labour movement and environmentalists.
Liz Murray looks at why democratic ownership of our energy infrastructure must power any Just Transition worthy of its name. In our interview with Chris Hamilton, we hear about what happens when a Just Transition fails, and how, in spite of everything, trade unions remain the central vehicle to organise power for workers. Mike Sarnecki reports on what it’s like to be invited as an offshore worker to discuss the transition with civil servants and sets out what it would really mean for workers to be involved in a transition that can call itself just.
Gordon Morgan asks the question of when clean energy will finally benefit the people of Scotland. Simon Barrow examines how our new ‘military Keynesianism’, the strategy for growth and development through a warfare economy, will fail to produce good jobs while exacerbating the ecological crises. Sara Cowan explains how climate change is not gender neutral, and that a truly Just Transition must mean a feminist one as well, while Matthew Crighton surveys the experiences of campaigners working in both environmental and labour movements.
What does climate breakdown mean to Scotland and our friends across the world? Colin Brown from the Fire Brigades Union reports on what it feels like to fight a burning Arthur’s Seat. Emma Brown reflects on direct action groups like This is Rigged, showing that attempts to bridge the climate struggle with food security have become more urgent than ever. Amidst widespread resistance against AI data centre plans in Scotland, Kim Pratt points to the international dimensions of how disastrous the necessary mineral mining is for the environment and for communities affected. Patricio Mesa reports on how indigenous communities in Ecuador are struggling against a new alliance of extractivist industries and the far-right, while the People’s Congress of Colombia shows how only an ecosocialist future can provide a path towards a just energy transition. Our issue closes with a review of “Or Something Worse — Disrupting the Just Transition”, and whether it holds suggestions our movements need.
As editors, we acknowledge the disappointment of industry workers who have not seen evidence of a “just” transition. The disillusion is shared by many climate activists, although we are not as deeply affected by the failures. But over the years we have learned that our movements share many values and interests in a sustain able planet, decent work and the need for a radical transformation of the economy, with wealth created being shared with workers and society on a far greater scale than ever before. We are better, strong er and more likely to succeed if we build stronger alliances between climate and labour movements. We hope this issue can serve as a starting point.
Matthew Crighton – Anh-Quân Nguyen – Catrina Randal