Barry Gardiner Quotes

Our climate is changing. That's a fact, and we need to have a real debate about how we should respond to it.

By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited... The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while.

Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You'll be pretty lonely, because you'll be debating our military, most of America's business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it's a problem and intend to solve it.

Doing all we can to combat climate change comes with numerous benefits, from reducing pollution and associated health care costs to strengthening and diversifying the economy by shifting to renewable energy, among other measures.

Make no mistake: Tackling climate change is vital. But to see everything through the lens of short-term CO2 reductions, letting our obsession with carbon blind us to the bigger picture, is to court catastrophe.

The growing evidence of climate change is forcing attention on carbon emissions and their reduction.

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.

Companies are the first to see the costs of climate change.

You can shut down our economy and the effect on climate change, it will be nothing.

Listen, I think we all believe that we need to take aggressive steps to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Politicians or pundits can distort or cherry-pick climate science any way they want to try and gain temporary influence with the public. But any serious industrialist who's facing 'climate exposure' - as it's now called by money managers - cannot afford to engage in that sort of self-delusion.

Investing now in safe-guarding people by helping them to adapt to climate change, will help save money and lives while building resilience.

The U.S. has fallen well behind Europe in recognizing climate change and the implications of climate change.

Climate change is real.

Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany have detailed plans to cut their greenhouse emissions by 20 to 50 percent.

You could engineer a human to survive the greenhouse effect because you think that's what's going to happen, and then all of a sudden the glaciers are creeping down on you.

What do we do about climate change bearing down upon us?

The best way to deal with climate change has been obvious for years: cut greenhouse-gas emissions severely. We haven't done that. In 2010, for example, carbon emissions rose by six per cent - the largest such increase on record.

You will not solve global climate change by hitting the delete button.

In China we need to do our own part to try to combat global climate change.

Many climate change deniers would have you believe that addressing climate change is all pain and no gain. This is simply not true. We can tackle this challenge while improving our personal health and the health of our economy. These are not competing interests; they go hand in hand.

Geological change usually takes thousands of years to happen but we are seeing the climate changing not just in our lifetimes but also year by year.

Australia has suffered a decade of drought, epic floods, a Category 5 cyclone, and a plague of locusts. But just because Aussies have the biggest carbon footprint in the world, it doesn't mean they're stupid.

I hope that in future Congresses there will reemerge a recognition that climate change is a reality, that our policies to meet our energy needs must also deal responsibly with environmental issues, including the damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

The biggest barrier to dealing with climate change is us: our own attachment to habits that are hard to shift, and our great ability to park or ignore uncomfortable choices.