Climate Justice Quotes

“What would happen if we all cut our meat consumption just by fifty percent? Or if we got our electricity down by twenty percent? Or bought fifty percent less ‘stuff’? If somebody just does it on their own, you think, what difference will it make? But if whole communities do it—if the entire population lived differently—it changes the system. There is so much power in actions like lifestyle change because not only does it cut pollution, it also helps you to find your voice.”
― Mary Robinson, Climate Justice: A Man-Made Problem With a Feminist Solution

“Poor is poor, in any language.”
― Mary Robinson, Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Yet, when it comes to the effects of climate change, there has been nothing but chronic injustice and the corrosion of human rights.”
― Mary Robinson, Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future

“In the United Kingdom, an influential report, Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change, authored by Lord Nicholas Stern, had concluded—to wide international coverage—that investing now to limit climate change and to prepare for its effects would cost a fraction of the measures needed if we wait until these adverse impacts make themselves known.”
― Mary Robinson, Climate Justice: A Man-Made Problem With a Feminist Solution

“Across the Americas and Asia, people told stories of hurricanes that destroyed homes and hospitals and took out government services, schools, and businesses. In the past, I had seen images of stranded polar bears and the disappearance of ancient glaciers, but these anecdotal stories from the front lines of climate change suddenly began to match the scientific findings I was reading with increasing concern. It seemed that Mother Earth was trying to tell us something—that depleting the earth’s resources at an ever-accelerating rate would ultimately lead to our own demise.”
― Mary Robinson, Climate Justice: A Man-Made Problem With a Feminist Solution

“It was not until I went to a meeting about climate change that I heard it was not God, but the rich people in the West who are doing this to us. We are asking that they stop or reduce [their emissions].”
― Mary Robinson, Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future

“If women and children of developing countries are the most vulnerable to climate change, then women from wealthy countries have so much to contribute to the solution through the way we live,” she said. “This is about lifestyle.”
― Mary Robinson, Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future