Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, delivered a speech ahead of the launch of the party's manifesto.
She said:
Just a few short weeks ago, the leaders of the Coalition and Labour parties signed up to a climate pledge saying that climate change was one of the greatest threats we face.
The Green Party agrees.
How odd, then, that none of the other parties have made the environment or climate change a priority in the election campaign so far.
Indeed, they've hardly mentioned it at all.
We recognise that tackling the environmental crisis we face isn't a luxury only for the good economic times - something that can be discarded when times are tough, like that extra cappuccino on the way to work
Tackling the environmental crisis is a way out of the economic difficulties we face. It's also an amazing opportunity
Taking strong measures to address the cold homes crisis demonstrates how.
Who wouldn't want to live in a home that was warm and dry? Who wouldn't want to not worry each month about whether they can afford their heating bills?
Around 9000 people die prematurely in the UK each year because they can't afford to keep their homes warm. More than are killed on roads or through alcohol.
In the sixth richest country in the world, it’s a national scandal.
Fuel poverty is blighting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in this country who are struggling to pay their energy bills.
And it doesn’t only cause discomfort – it creates ill-health as well
Cold homes cost the NHS £1.3bn every year, as older people – and the two million children living in houses without sufficient heating – succumb to totally avoidable illness.
Yet over the past two years, the number of energy efficiency measures being installed in UK homes has fallen by 80%.
We will provide a free nationwide retrofit insulation programme, concentrating on areas where fuel poverty is most serious - including parts of Brighton, where I'm standing.
This is designed to insulate 9 million homes in total, and to be delivered by local authorities, creating over 100,000 jobs.
And there would be an option of a further £15,000 in subsidised loans from the Green Investment Bank for further green energy improvements.
To make it happen, we will invest £45bn over the course of the parliament (based on an average cost of £4800 per home, and 30% homes taking up loans averaging £10K, with interest subsidy of 5%).
There are a huge number of options of how we could pay for this. We could use some of the £12bn a year raised by increasing corporation tax; or we could redirect some of the Government's current £100bn infrastructure budget – it’s extraordinary that not a penny of it is currently earmarked for energy efficiency. A Robin Hood Tax will raise £20bn per year, or we could simply ring-fence carbon tax revenue – roughly £16bn per year – that currently goes straight into the Treasury.
The money is there – it’s just a matter of political choice. It is nonsense to say we can waste billions on new roads or HS2 but can't afford to keep people warm in their homes.
And it’s nonsense because this is simple common sense, as well: for every £1 invested in home energy efficiency, £1.27 is returned to the public purse because of the economic benefits.
It’s also the only way to permanently bring down household energy bills - unlike Labour's temporary energy price freeze.
So at a stroke, we can get our energy bills down, protect the environment, end the scandal of cold homes, and create jobs in every constituency
This is just one way of creating a Greener, fairer economy
And it's an example of the kind of practical policies the Greens will push for in the next parliament
All the polls show that no one party likely to win overall majority
That means the role of smaller parties will be more important than ever.
We've ruled out any kind of support to a Conservative government.
But we would consider supporting a minority Labour government on a case by case basis.
That would give us a real opportunity to push Labour on the policies that we know the public wants, and which are at the heart of our manifesto - scrapping nuclear weapons or reversing the privatisation in our NHS, returning local schools to local control, bringing rail back into public ownership.
We have the vision of a fairer, greener world - we have the practical policies to achieve it - and as our membership growth shows, we're gaining the power to achieve it.