Working-Class Environmentalism and Climate Justice: The Challenge of Convergence Today

Since the great climate strikes of 2019, and even more so after the acknowledgment of the environmental roots of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ecological transition seems to be everywhere. While the European Union turned it into the cornerstone of its recovery strategy, the Draghi Government had even established a brand new ministry just for it. Nonetheless, a quick historical recognition is easily sufficient to dampen such enthusiasm. In fact, it is at least since 1992 – year of the renowned Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro – that, under the aegis of the United Nations, the involved countries legislate according to a strategy that we can define as “ecological transition from above”. The core idea behind it is simple but ground-breaking: it is not true, as it was formerly believed, that environmental preservation and economic growth are mutually exclusive. To the contrary, the green economy properly understood is seen as capable of internalising the ecological limit, which is transformed from a ‘blockage’ to capitalist development