Brown calls for world-leading green agenda
Gordon Brown has called on the UK to take a global lead in the fight against climate change.
The prime minister set the country a “historic and world changing” mission to build a global low carbon economy.
In his first major speech on the environment, Mr Brown called for a new Marshall Plan on the environment, arguing the world faced a similar “fatal choice” to that of Europe in 1945.
The Marshall Plan saw American and European governments commit three per cent of their national income to rebuild countries occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. The scheme has been credited with restraining communism to eastern Europe.
Mr Brown said: “At that time, leaders had to fight against shortsightedness, inertia and the dominance of old backward looking dogmas.
“But they met the challenge because they understood that prosperity is indivisible, that to be sustained it has to be shared, and that meeting the costs and bearing the burdens were the only guarantee of prosperity and security.
“The climate change crisis is the product of many generations, but overcoming it must be the great project of this generation.”
Mr Brown backed tough targets to reduce carbon emissions, insisting the UK would meet its global obligations.
He said the government is consulting on targets to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent, after campaigners warned the 60 per cent target set out in the climate change bill was not ambitious enough to stem climate change.
Other measures outlined by the prime minister included a pledge to assess all new policies for their impact on emissions. Polluting policies will have to be offset by emission cuts in other sectors, he said.
Mr Brown also repeated a pledge to make all new homes carbon neutral by 2016 and said the UK would meet existing EU targets to increase renewable energy use to 20 per cent by 2020.
He also supported measures to reduce packaging and cut the use of plastic bags.
Mr Brown has said the UK must take a leading role in developing environmentally friendly industries, arguing green ambitions do not have to be at the expense of economic growth.
Prior to his speech, the prime minister said the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should be a “wake-up call” to the world.
The report warns human activity has caused abrupt changes to the global climate. UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon reiterated his call for all countries to work together to tackle the defining challenge of our age.
World leaders will meet in Bali next month at the UN climate change conference. They will negotiate the second phase of the Kyoto agreement, to take effect from 2012.
Today’s speech is designed to convince voters Mr Brown is serious about climate change, after opposition politicians and environmental campaigners questioned his green credentials.
His cause was undermined this weekend, however, when it emerged the government agencies overseeing environmental efforts will be victims of the £300 million cuts planned by Defra.
The department has drawn up a series of cuts which will affect agencies in charge of recycling, nature protection, energy saving and carbon emissions.
