Barry Gardiner Quotes

Barry Gardiner

Profession : Politician

Birth : March 10, 1957

The direct risks from climate change are obvious: as changing weather patterns cause extremes of flood and drought, hurricanes and typhoons. These damage the physical infrastructure of buildings and bridges roads and railways. They are violent and disruptive.

Barry Gardiner

Years of government inaction on air pollution has got people thinking that the state cannot even protect basic public goods like clean air.

Barry Gardiner

After years of globalisation, disaffected populations have lost confidence that the system is fair.

Barry Gardiner

Dictators have an old trick to assess the strength of their opposition: they say something patently untrue, and then look to see who mindlessly repeats it. Those who do, they recognise as their true supporters.

Barry Gardiner

Whether you're a banker or a botanist - the economic benefits of a clean energy revolution are compelling.

Barry Gardiner

Adaptation is the forgotten word of climate change.

Barry Gardiner

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.

Barry Gardiner

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

Barry Gardiner

Whilst the developed world may say it wants to see much greater commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this may only be politically feasible if there is strong support for adaptation measures in those countries at greatest immediate risk.

Barry Gardiner

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.

Barry Gardiner

GDP has been a con perpetrated upon the poor of the world: a measure of economic activity and not of actual wealth. What it masks is the way in which we transform their natural capital into our consumption through international rules that regard the ecosystem services upon which they rely as mere externalities.

Barry Gardiner

The basis for securing preferential future trade terms with India begins in that recognition of essential equality. Indeed it begins in recognising that India is now an emerging global superpower whose primary interests are regional in South East Asia and who needs a deal with the U.K. less than we need one with her.

Barry Gardiner

Trade negotiations require compromise.

Barry Gardiner

The Tories are trying to lock the country into the old, dirty technologies that harm our communities and the people who are forced to live with disruption on their doorstep.

Barry Gardiner

Our view has been that unless stringent environmental tests can be passed by would-be frackers, then no fracking should take place.

Barry Gardiner

Even if Trump leaves the Paris Agreement or the U.N. climate process entirely, the issue will be unavoidable at G7 and G20 level.

Barry Gardiner

Understanding government can be a complex business. The stated reason for a policy and the real reason for it are rarely the same.

Barry Gardiner

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

Barry Gardiner

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.

Barry Gardiner

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.

Barry Gardiner