PM Targets Climate Change

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for "vision and determination" from world leaders to rise to the challenge of climate change.

In a speech at the Foreign Press Association in London, the Prime Minister stressed the importance of building a global low carbon economy and pledged to put the UK at the forefront of the fight against climate change and its effects.

Mr Brown said: "Our mission is, in truth, historic and world changing - to build, over the next fifty years and beyond, a global low carbon economy. And it is not overdramatic to say that the character and course of the coming century will be set by how we measure up to this challenge."

The Prime Minister outlined measures from three government bills - the Climate Change Bill, the Energy Bill and the Planning Bill - that will help the UK reduce its carbon emissions and move to greener energy sources.

On climate change, Mr Brown said that the government was committed to a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050 and is consulting on the possibility of raising this to 80%. He also said that the UK will also commit to increasing its use of renewable energy sources to meet its share of a 20% EU target by 2020.

Planning regulations will also have an impact, with all new home required to be carbon neutral by 2016. Other steps include the convening of a supermarket forum aimed at cutting packaging waste and a new international funding framework to help developing nations switch to green technologies.

The Prime Minister looked ahead to next month's summit on climate change in Bali where wolrd leaders will begin negotiations on a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. He announced the release of a statement outlining the government's principle aims for any agreement, including a global rise in temperature of no more than two degrees centigrade and a 50% cut in global greenhouse emissions by 2050.

Pointing to the opportunities afforded by green technology, Mr Brown said that a low carbon economy could help create hundreds of thousands of UK jobs and a "vast new export market".

The Prime Minister's speech follows the publication of the a report by the UN-led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which contained warnings of an abrupt change in global climate conditions as a result of human activity.

The report predicted the loss of Arctic summer ice, an increase in heatwaves and other extreme weather events, and a rise in sea levels of 59cm even before melting ice is taken into account.

Commenting on the report, Mr Brown said that it showed: "pervasive and prolonged consequences" as a result of inaction. He said: "All of us - government, business, civil society and individuals - have a part to play. Working apart we will surely fail. But working together I have no doubt that this is a challenge to which the human spirit and our powers of ingenuity and enterprise will rise."

(KMcA)