At the opening session of the 2026 Ecosocialism conference, RMT activist Mel Mullings talked about temperatures reaching 40C for tube workers on some working days and also the growing number of floods in the tube. Mel asked whether the politicians who stand in front of cameras talking about London’s green transport system “ever mention the human cost paid by workers who carry the weight of the climate emergency.”
It seems to me that sooner rather than later the London Underground will have heat strikes and that will a key orientation for socialists in the near future. Heatstrke.uk held a campaign session at the conference, which was held in London on 30 May 2026, and it’s a campaign that is well worth supporting.
Mullings was joined at the opening session of the conference by Claire LeJeune, who, as an elected member of the French national assembly, brought greetings from La France Insoumise (LFI) to the conference and noted the similarities in the way that the climate emergency was impacting France and Britain. She offered real hope that LFI might be in a position to win the 2027 French presidential election and offer a socialist response to the climate emergency in government.
These contributions set the working-class politics tone for this, the Ecosocialism conference, which represented a step forward for the Ecosocialist Action Network from the 2023 and 2024 conferences in terms of numbers attending and political debate.
Greens Organise, the socialist pressure group in the Green Party who sponsored the conference and were well represented, had a speaker, James O’Nions, on the opening platform. He spoke well, explaining that while their 2,000 members are dwarfed by the Green Party’s 230,000 membership, their aim was to keep the party left by arguing for socialist politics and strategy.
There is no doubt that Green Organise will be tested in this regard. In a session of the conference in which local government featured, one, I assume Green Party member, took the time to mention the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition’s campaign for setting a no-cuts budget describing it as “very unhelpful”. In the same session there was a clear anxiety among the Greens present that their taking control of local councils was “a poisoned chalice”.
In my view, the simple clarity of the TUSC campaign points to an elemental truth, that socialist councillors should never implement cuts that impact on the living standards of working-class communities. A replay of the ‘dented shield’ strategy of the Labour soft left in the 1980s and 1990s is soon due and the socialist Green will face a reckoning about which side of the line they stand.
As one of the members of the conference organising committee, I facilitated a session titled Big Tech, AI and the climate crisis. The opening speaker, socialist writer and activist Ann Alexander, started off by talking about the Russian revolutionaries with Lenin and Bukharin and integrated their thinking into what AI might mean for the working class in the here and now.
Socialist economist James Meadway discussed in detail how data centres are impacting on local communities and housing planning due to the energy needs of data. Dan McQuillan, author of Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist approach to AI, began his discussion by saying: “I’d like to say that AI is actually very shoddy as technology and error prone”. It was not only a “don’t believe the hype” talk but also a “resist AI” intervention.
In a short article I cannot do justice to the AI presentations which should be watched when the videos are released and will be available at ecosocialism-conference.org. More than that, this trio of speakers should be invited to your town or city to explain what is really going on with AI. As a non-specialist, I certainly learnt a lot and you might as well. There was lots of food for thought.
There is also a lot more that could be written about what was, overall, an excellent conference, barring the tech glitches that only a more well-funded organisation could resolve. Conferences, however, are one thing, action on the ground is quite another, which is why the organising committee ensured that a main session was focused on organising on the ground and building the Ecosocialist Action Network.(EAN) and climate assemblies. There were lots of practical suggestions and lots to learn from the Free Fair London Campaign in particular.
To find out more or to join the Ecosocialist Action Network visit ecosocialistaction.org.
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