Barry Gardiner

“The shipping industry plays a fundamental role in boosting global trade and prosperity. Maritime leaders have rightly recognised the need to invest in more energy-efficient vessels and to apply measures like slow-steaming. But to ensure a level playing field, collective action is urgently needed across the sector.”

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

“The U.K. should see overseas aid as an investment in the future potential of a market and shouldn't be used as a stick to bash trading partners and strategic allies with.”

“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.”

“It used to be an article of faith held across parliament that the government should be 'technology neutral' to achieve cost-effective decarbonisation.”

“The less money you have the more likely you are to live close to polluted roads. Most of us cannot choose to move further away from a main road or add another 40 minutes to our commute so that we can live in a quiet, clean, leafy street.”

“The road to the Paris climate talks has been paved across decades.”

“We all know the principle that the polluter pays? Well one day I got to wondering why it is that the polluter seems to get away with it quite so often! Then it occurred to me that if the polluter is going to pay, somebody needs to tell him how much. The proper valuation of natural capital will enable us to say how much.”

“Making the most of global trade opportunities does not mean transitioning to a low-tax, deregulatory, 'Bargain Basement' economy. It means developing a robust Industrial Strategy intertwined with a strong trade agenda.”

“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.”

“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 threat to the conditions in which our economy can function at all.”

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

“Adaptation is the forgotten word of climate change.”

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

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

“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!”

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

“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.”

“Treaties negotiated with foreign powers create binding obligations on future generations that cannot be repealed in the way that domestic law can. As a consequence, the most rigorous process should be in place to scrutinise such treaties before they ever come to be ratified.”