Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Caroline Lucas

Clear skies and clean air must become the new normal. We must re-design our cities, reclaiming the streets for cycling and walking, allowing people to walk along streets unpolluted by traffic.

Climate change demands a collective response. We can't expect other countries to act if we don't.

Britain is a parliamentary democracy. Power rests in Parliament, in the House of Commons, and the government - the executive - has to seek the consent of MPs for its legislation.

Other countries are developing well-being economies - we should do the same. That is the way to create a society which would stand the test of time - for everyone.

Westminster's hardly a billboard for people-centred politics. Given its makeup, the term 'Commons' is pretty ironic, too.

Addressing the climate and biodiversity crises requires us to radically change our economic models, moving away from economic growth as the over-riding measure of progress and moving instead towards improving health and wellbeing for people and nature. That means a different economic model taking us towards a sustainable economy.

The truth is that goodness is hardwired in humanity.

Politics is about everything we do from the moment we get up in the morning to the minute we go to bed at night. It's something everybody and anybody can be involved in.

We can no longer allow special corporate interests to shape our political and financial decisions, while our citizens and communities cry for real climate action.

Actions speak louder than Climate Emergency declarations.

When this coronavirus crisis is over, what kind of society will we be? A more important question is what kind of society do we want to be?

The Green Party is full of motivated, driven people who want to make change happen as fast as possible.

Britain was once notorious as the 'dirty man of Europe' with polluted air, raw sewage pumped into the sea and protected sites being lost at a terrifying rate. E.U. laws and the threat of fines changed much of that.

Our economy is failing far too many - forcing parents to use foodbanks to feed their children, demonising migrants and condemning all of us to climate breakdown.

Nuclear weapons remain a costly distraction from the real security threats we face, like climate change.

Unquestionably, major transformation of the way the U.K. generates its heat and power is essential.

Once upon a time the Conservative party was a broad church which embraced a range of views.

We promote new fossil fuel infrastructure, from airport expansion and coal mines in the U.K. to oil pipelines in the U.S. Investments are meant to build and secure our shared future - but all these fossil fuel investments are directly fuelling the climate crisis that threatens to undermine that future.

The people who serve your fast food lunch or your after-work drinks deserve dignity - and if big companies don't start paying them enough for a decent standard of living, they have the power to close these businesses. But no one goes on strike lightly.

I joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s and protested at Greenham Common.

No more top-down politics with Westminster dictating what's right for every community. We must all be partners in designing a better future for our country.

I stand alongside everyone campaigning for better pay and conditions - they are paving the way for a fairer society.

The point about Roosevelt's New Deal was that it was visionary - for the 1930s.

I come from a very conventional and non-political background.

There is an important message that all political leaders should be taking from the response to coronavirus, and that is that people are prepared to make hard choices for the common good.

In a fair society, the solution to unemployment is not to force people into workfare programmes which do little more than supply big companies with free labour. It's to create jobs that pay a living wage, for example, by investing in new sustainable infrastructure projects and boosting the jobs-rich low carbon economy.

Sometimes it takes a sudden change to make you realise just how bad things were.

With the huge benefits of investing in renewables, energy efficiency and demand reduction becoming ever more obvious, it's clear that there needs to be far greater scrutiny of the policy decisions that are propelling Britain towards a nuclear future.

Violence against women is not inevitable.

Continuing down a path where profit is king is unsustainable for our society, our health and our planet.

When it comes to topping the 'least popular' lists, MPs have form. Typically, we're pipped to the post only by bankers and traffic wardens.

We cannot afford to burn the vast majority of known fossil fuel reserves.

If a prime minister can suspend parliament to deliver a 'no deal' Brexit, what will the government try to do next with no democratic scrutiny or oversight?

With pollution from traffic a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, we should be building a transport and planning system that makes car-free travel for shorter distances the norm for the majority.

Politicians can either keep listening to a small number of polluting fossil fuel companies, who're keen to profit from keeping us hooked on oil, coal and gas, or they can listen to the majority of other voices from civil society to business calling for an urgent switch to low and zero carbon heat and power.

It's going to take everyone to rebuild a fairer, more sustainable, more beautiful Britain.

We must not let the response to the coronavirus crisis make the climate and inequality crises even worse.

It used to be said that war was the locomotive of history, with its power to accelerate change. The coronavirus crisis has that same power. It has already shown us who we really are, and how there is much more than unites than divides us. It has shown how governments need to work with their citizens to overcome threats or challenges.

If we genuinely believe in a bigger future for our country, we have to redistribute both wealth and power - so people can take back control for good, not just for one vote.

The response to coronavirus has shown what can be done when governments put their mind to it.

Labour needs to end its support for expensive nuclear power and vanity projects like HS2, and take a firm stance against the ecologically impossible expansion of airports.

As more and more people demand fair pay, the Government and big corporations are going to have to take notice.

The Government needs to recognise that we live on a planet with finite resources - and start measuring our progress as a society by the quality of our lives, not the expansion of our GDP.

We have lived with deadly levels of air pollution for years, which have made us more vulnerable to coronavirus.

Many are outspoken about the climate crisis, but conveniently ignore the fact that support for fossil fuels is not just incompatible with curbing emissions but dangerously counterproductive.

Everything from the infrastructure we build to the products we use must now be aimed squarely at building a zero-carbon world.

Coronavirus has exposed for all what many of us already knew - some of our most important workers have barely enough to live on, and millions are condemned to financial insecurity, inequality and food poverty.

The creation of regional mayors has done little to reduce the sense that all power is concentrated in Westminster, and all investment in London.

We should entrust our young people with a voice to express their views on what their futures should look like.

We always knew that whatever party Nigel Farage led - first UKIP and then the Brexit party - was basically a vehicle for his own political self-glorification and now he's proved it.

We must instil our future leaders with the expertise, knowledge and skills to prevent climate breakdown and restore nature to health.

Huge public spending and borrowing in the face of an existential crisis is clearly the right thing to do, as is putting people's health and wellbeing above the pursuit of economic growth.

Humanity's inclination to be kind during the coronavirus crisis is an unprecedented, uplifting demonstration of solidarity.

A public, unified and integrated railway - hardly controversial.

Banks and investors have poured money into dirty energy and high-carbon for decades. While no single policy is a magic bullet for the climate crisis, there is also no way of solving it that doesn't involve a fundamental reimagining of the role of our financial system.

Renewable energy is not unaffordable as the fossil fuel giants would like us to believe.

Our railways maintain a healthy economy and society. They keep businesses running and families close. They're a vital public service and must be treated as such.

We know that Brexit would make our poorest communities poorer still. That it would make the powerless even less able to effect change.

My constituents are my employers - if I let them down I should be accountable to them.

The billions being spent on Trident replacement would be much better spent on investing in developing the infrastructure we need for a zero-carbon economy, as well as in protecting public services. To use the money on a project that makes Britain and the world a far more dangerous place is politically irresponsible and economically obscene.