Brown's First Environment Speech

Today Brown gave his first major environmental speech since he became Prime Minister See here for more info

A major announcement was that the independent climate change committee (established in the Climate Change Bill published earlier this month) will be asked to consider new evidence suggesting that developed countries need to aim for an 80% cut in carbon emissions by 2050. The ambitious targets seem to be pushing the nation to the forefront of global efforts to tackle climate change. A very welcome part of the speech was that Brown would encourage allies such as the US to make similar pledges (although we wait with bated breath to see what actually happens). He said any successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol must pledge to hold the rise in global average temperatures to no more than 2 C.

Brown said tackling the problem would require a "fourth technological revolution" on the scale of the development of the steam engine, the combustion engine or the microprocessor. He said: "The climate change crisis is the product of many generations, but overcoming it must be the great project of this generation." He said up to one million British people could be employed in the environmental industries in the next two decades.

But the important question is what would the Government actually do to achieve this revolution? Here are a few points that he spoke about:

Brown said the government hoped to build in Britain one of the world's first carbon capture facilities — a process that involves collecting carbon dioxide and pumping it in liquid form into porous rock layers underground, where it cannot contribute to warming the atmosphere.

On a smaller scale, Brown was convinced that the UK could eliminate free carrier bags - or "single-use disposable bags".