Tackle climate crisis and social injustice at the same time, Caroline Lucas tells Labour

Labour must combine tackling the climate crisis with pursuing social justice, if elected, to show achieving net zero will not be done "on the backs of the poor", the former Green party MP Caroline Lucas has warned.

- Fiona Harvey, Damien Gayle

Lucas, who represented Brighton Pavilion since 2010 but is standing down, said: "The biggest priority is to demonstrate that is not the case."

That should be achievable, she added, because social justice and shifting to a green economy go hand in hand. Labour, if it forms the next government, must avoid mistakes that put costs on low-income families or that hurt people's jobs, she said.

"The policies that we need to get [greenhouse gas] emissions down are policies that will increase people's wellbeing in any case," she said.

Home insulation was one example, where if a minimum energy efficiency standard were enforced on landlords then tenants would have warmer homes, less energy waste and lower emissions. "Again and again there are concrete examples of where green policy is actually social justice policy, it's one and the same thing. But that story doesn't get told nearly strongly enough."

Lucas warned that a resurgent rightwing Tory or Reform UK party would be looking to "weaponise" the climate crisis and would seize on any missteps by Labour on the issue.