THE GREEN Party has launched a branch in Winchester as it prepares to fight city council elections in May.

Green MEP Caroline Lucas who officially launched the branch after a public meeting at the Discoverey Centre on climate change yesterday (March 18) said: "It feels like now is the time."

The MEP for the South-East said many people thought voting for Green Party candidates in areas where they stood little chance of winning was a wasted vote.

But she said: "Voting Green does send a powerful message to other parties. It makes them sit up."

"Even if you get one green councillor on any council, next time there will be more elected because people will realise if you vote Green, you can get Green."

Ms Lucas was once the only Green councillor on Oxford County Council, campaigners at Winchester Discovery Centre heard. Now there are eight Green councillors in Oxford.

The MEP said: "Climate change is not primarily a technical or scientific or economic debate but more than anything a challenge of political will. It is not as though we don't know what to do to reduce climate change.

"The real question is will we build the political will fast enough or spend our time chasing every scientific report and risk going down in history as the species that monitored its own extinction rather than taking steps to stop it?"

The Green MEP said she liked the phrase "living lightly" to describe a zero-carbon lifestyle. She said it was about "treading lightly" instead of stamping on the planet.

She shared her vision for the future where streets belonged to people rather than cars, where more consumer goods were recycled, reused and repaired and people only worked for what they needed, leaving more time for friends and family.

The Green MEP said: "Martin Luther King left us not with a nightmare but with a dream. I think we have to get better at imagining that green dream so that we might inspire others as well as get better at living it ourselves."

Robert Hutchison, convenor of Winchester Action on Climate Change (WinACC), said there was "a big opportunity" but only "narrow window" in which to tackle climate change.

He said: "Climate change is everyone's issue. It is too important an issue to leave to politicians and ecologists."

The social movement to make the city greener was launched in October, the same month as it was named as having Britain's largest carbon footprint per person.

Aims include reducing the carbon footprint of the district by one third by 2015.

Mr Hutchison estimated between a 10 and 15 per cent reduction could be achieved simply by more home insulation.

Mike Chater, from Winchester Friends of the Earth, who chaired the meeting, said: "We need to engage more people on the most serious issue of our time."

The branch website is Winchestergreenparty.org.uk.