UK
To Lead World In
Climate Change Fight
By Joe Churcher
14 March, 2007
The
Independent
Britain
will lead the world towards combating climate change, Tony Blair vowed
today. He unveiled a "revolutionary step" in the Government's
blueprint for reducing harmful emissions, binding the UK to a 60-per-cent
cut by 2050.
And Chancellor Gordon Brown
urged the country to get behind the efforts in the same way it did with
the Make Poverty History movement.
The Prime Minister spoke
out as he unveiled the proposals to an audience of teenagers in Downing
Street.
He told them: "Every
generation of political leaders is confronted by a major and often different
challenge.
"People that have been
in Downing Street over the years have faced issues to do with the Cold
War, the Depression and the rise of fascism.
"Climate change is a
bit of a different type of challenge but a challenge I believe is the
biggest long-term threat facing our world."
He said: "This is a
revolutionary step in confronting the threat of climate change. It sets
an example to the rest of the world but, as important as anything else,
it listens and responds to the strong desire on the part of the British
people to take the lead and to keep it."
The draft Climate Change
Bill also sets an interim target of a 26-per-cent to 32-per-cent reduction
in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.
Legally-binding carbon "budgets"
will be set to ensure Britain remains on target to meet those figures,
and progress will be reported to Parliament annually.
But opposition politicians,
while welcoming the proposals, have called for them to be strengthened
further - including making the binding targets annual.
Mr Brown - who went head
to head with Tory leader David Cameron on the issue yesterday - said:
"The lesson of climate change is that each of us can make a difference
but all of us together can make an even bigger difference."
Future chancellors would
"have to count the carbon just as they count the pennies and they
will have to account for the use of the resources of our country just
as they account for the use of public money", he said.
"The world is changing
in the way in which we measure the impact on the quality of life of
what we do, and the approach we are setting out today is not just about
a better economics for today and tomorrow, it is about a better quality
of life all round.
"And I believe that
the movement that started with Make Poverty History to change the way
we think about poverty in the world is a movement that can now begin
again to make for a sustainable environment.
"And all of us can play
our part in making history in the next few years."
He said he would be meeting
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz this evening to press the UK's proposals
for "global action" to match domestic efforts.
The youngsters at the event
included regional "climate change champions" as well as members
of the UK Youth Parliament and pupils from several schools.
They grilled the two politicians
- and Environment Secretary David Miliband - on the new policies, which
Mr Miliband will present to MPs in a statement this afternoon.
Mr Brown joked: "This
is a far better and more informed and better educated audience about
the environment than we will find in the House of Commons this afternoon."
© 2007 Independent News
and Media Limited