Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Barry Gardiner - Page 2

Doing nothing to stop national parks being drilled for oil isn't what climate leadership looks like.

As we pump greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide, making the seawater acidic and hostile for shellfish and corals.

Pluralism has been the driving fact behind political theory now since the Copernican revolution and the wars of religion that were spawned from it.

Labour believes that every trade deal should come before parliament for a full debate on the floor of the House of Commons, with a vote at the end of that debate.

In order to properly measure the impacts of climate change on our Financial system they must first be identified and disclosed.

No minister should be able to whisk through Parliament agreements that are negotiated behind closed doors.

Climate change brings increasingly frequent and severe weather patterns and this means more floods.

Leaving the E.U. with no trade deal is the worst possible option. It will condemn British exporters to the full range of tariffs and barriers that apply under WTO rules.

The future can be just and green - not corruption-mired and polluted.

A Brexit that works for Britain needs to work for small businesses and must ensure that our future trade deals don't just work for big business.

The costs of solar energy across the world have come down so fast that its growth as a cheap, clean energy source has been exponential.

Thanks to David Attenborough and 'Blue Planet 2,' we've become aware of the damage to our oceans from plastic pollution. We now know to use textile shopping bags instead of plastic, reuse coffee-cups and refuse polystyrene ones, and avoid plastic straws when ordering a drink at the bar.

As the cost of renewables plummets, the clean energy transition is increasingly driven by the business case.

We must commit to a positive programme of ocean recovery to combat the effects of climate breakdown, and boost our oceans' capacity to tackle climate change.

Leaders get things wrong. Of course they do. They have imperfect information. They face competing political pressures. Ultimately they are human.

Acidisation isn't benign - like fracking, it can pose risks to groundwater sources, and runs counter to the urgency with which we must shift away from fossil fuels.

Climate change is a shared crisis - one that transcends politics and borders and must be fought collectively, justly and transparently.

The pluralist society must be pragmatic. It does not say that 'God is dead.' It does not say that 'God is alive.' It says if we are to answer the question of how we can live together then we must remain agnostic on all such matters - at least so far as our civic association is structured.

The most important thing to understand about Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change agreement is, whilst it undeniably damages the rest of the world, it does most damage to America itself.

It appears that President Trump wishes to disrupt the global multilateral trading system as much as possible.

We recognise the need for government to provide a clear and stable regulatory framework so as to release the investment power of business in order to deliver progressive public policy.

We recognise the link between environmental failure and social injustice. When the energy sector is privatised and deregulated, it not only tends to pollute more, it also charges the poorest more per unit!

Donald Trump spoke to the experience of ordinary working people when he dubbed Nafta the 'worst trade deal ever made.'

World leaders need to work together through the rules-based system of the WTO to tackle unfair practices, including the widespread dumping of steel on world markets at less than market price.

Addressing climate change globally promotes health, education and gender equality. Addressing it domestically secures U.K. jobs and sustainable clean economic growth; it protects communities from flooding and the scandal of fuel poverty. It begins to see clean air flow in our cities and schools.

The Tories must stop focusing on their ideological obsession with a hard Brexit and their internal party divisions and start focusing on what is best for our country and our economy. Their absurd proposal that the U.K. should become the E.U.'s tariff collector is neither practical nor palatable across the Channel.

Fear is a treacherous leader. It shrinks from the new and fails to meet the challenges of the future.

We need to be investing in the low-carbon technologies that are creating the apprenticeships and skilled jobs of the future.

We are patriotic enough to believe there is no good reason why foreign investors from Europe cannot be expected to resolve any disputes fairly through British justice, operating through British courts. And we are European enough to think that our companies can do the same by relying on European courts.

Classical economics values things by seeing how much someone will pay for them. But this is where classical economics is wrong. What it fails to account for are all the 'externalities' - the services people regard as free goods: pollination services, flood protection, climate regulation, soil stabilization, carbon sequestration.

Trade agreements influence the standards, protections and regulations that shape the kind of society we live in.

Labour opposes the principle of companies having their own private and privileged courts in which to settle investor-state disputes.

The Tories' favoured trade deals post-Brexit are likely to make regional inequality worse, by focusing on the best deal for the City of London at the expense of smaller firms across the country.

Climate change must be approached as an opportunity to transition our economy to a zero carbon future. Business understands this even when governments don't.

Labour must evince a positive vision for the future of our country outside the E.U. One that is consistent with the leave voters' objectives, without sacrificing our rights and protections, as the Conservatives threaten to do.

Like so many free trade deals before and since, Nafta was sold as a massive opportunity for working people and their prospects. Forecasts spoke of hundreds of thousands of new jobs in all three countries. The reality could not have been more different.

Normally I am clear beforehand about which single proposal in a binary choice I am going to vote for.

Poor decision making in government; the tragedy of short-term economic thinking; our national housing crisis: these are real 21st Century problems for our country. They are problems that can only be solved by genuinely fearless thinking about our natural environment.

A well-functioning judicial or education system is just as much part of the wealth of a nation as its roads, ports and factories.

Nafta has been responsible for a race to the bottom in standards across North America, with working conditions declining along with wages.