Today marks twenty years since Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans, a storm that was more than just a natural disaster: it was a climate-fuelled catastrophe that exposed deep failures in governance, the ruthlessness of unrestrained capitalism, and the absence of basic humanity.
Driven by rising sea temperatures and the supercharging of storms in a boiling world due to fossil fuels, the devastation it caused was multiplied by human choices. Today, we are faced with the same choice: protect people, or protect the system.
Disaster capitalism in the wake of Katrina
In the days after the storm hit, the majority Black population of New Orleans was abandoned and stranded residents waited in sweltering heat without food, water, or medical care. When help arrived it came in the form of the National Guard treating survivors as security threats. Communities already marginalized were further terrorized, while those with resources escaped. This is a pattern that has repeated over and over again in climate emergencies all around the globe in the twenty years since.
Katrina was the disaster that gave rise to Naomi Klein’s “disaster capitalism” thesis — the observation that in the wake of catastrophe, the wealthy and powerful move quickly to consolidate control and profit from destruction. In New Orleans, public housing was left in ruins. Milton Friedman, the grandfather of neoliberal economics himself, went so far as to write in the Wall Street Journal that the “tragic” destruction of the city’s public schools was in fact “an opportunity for permanent reform.” The reform in mind, and that was carried out, was to replace public schools with private charters and affordable housing with luxury condos, all while basic services, homes, and electricity grids remained unrepaired.
Aerial of a flooded neighborhood with streets and homes totally submerged. Photo by Jocelyn Augustino/FEMA
Lessons from 2005 into 2025: the same failures in a hotter world
Just a year before Katrina, Louisiana had requested funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to strengthen hurricane preparedness. The request was refused. The Bush administration had gutted the federal disaster mitigation program while increasing investment in private emergency management firms. When the hurricane arrived, the response on the ground was almost non-existent. Yet behind closed doors, federal officials and industry representatives worked together on a so-called “relief” plan that bundled market reforms with measures to expand oil and gas drilling – the industry whose emissions had made the disaster that much more likely and devastating. In 2005, the annual average of parts per million of CO2 – one of the main causes of global heating – in the atmosphere was 379ppm. Today, it’s 428ppm.
While CO2 levels skyrocket, the parallels between 2005 and 2025 are hard to ignore. Twenty years on, the federal programs designed to help us prepare for and respond to disasters are once again under attack. Weather monitoring services face budget cuts. FEMA is under attack (sign this petition telling the Congress not to gut FEMA). At the very moment when climate disasters are becoming more frequent and more intense, we are dismantling the very systems that keep people safe. Meanwhile, fossil fuel expansion continues at pace, just as it did in the wake of Katrina.
Thirty-six Fema workers signed their names to the letter, while 141 signed anonymously for fear of retribution. Photograph: Gene J Puskar/AP
We are now at a critical juncture for climate action. In 2024 the world breached the 1.5°C warming threshold for the first time in recorded history, and that target is now in serious jeopardy. Yet every fraction of a degree of warming we can avoid still matters. Climate scientists warn that even an additional 0.1°C can significantly increase the risk and intensity of extreme hurricanes, translating directly into lives saved or lost.
Why people power matters now
Despite this, fossil fuel corporations are betting that the world will remain dependent on their products for decades to come. They are ramping up exploration, planning for new fields, and lobbying hard to lock in infrastructure that would keep us tied to oil and gas long past the point of safety. Allowing that vision to win is not an option.
The United States has stepped back from its role in global climate cooperation, withdrawing from elements of the multilateral process and weakening its credibility on the world stage. But that retreat does not mean the fight is over. It means the role of civil society is more important than ever. We must push harder, organize more effectively, and hold leaders to account in every forum we can.
This September, people around the world will draw the line on climate inaction, corporate greed, and political failure. We will demand that those wrecking our planet pay their fair share. We will remind our leaders that power does not rest solely in their hands, it belongs to the people. We will make it clear that delay is not an option.
Communities in New Orleans come together to demand governments and billionaires to put people over profit. Photo: Jordan Daigre
“Never again” was the promise after Katrina and after every atrocity, yet from New Orleans to Gaza and Vietnam, we see the same warning: those in power will let ‘never again’ happen again and again, unless we stop them.
Katrina showed us what happens when a climate disaster meets systemic injustice. Twenty years later, with the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes are even higher. But the outcome is not inevitable. Every tenth of a degree matters. Every win that builds resilience over profit matters. Every act of solidarity and community care matters.