Prime Minister calls for 'new Marshall Plan' to tackle climate change
Mon 19 November 2007
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Gordon Brown has called for an effort equivalent to the post-war Marshall Plan which rebuilt shattered economies to set the country on a "historic and world changing" mission to build a global low carbon economy. In his first major speech on the environment as Prime Minister, Mr Brown said: "The climate change crisis is the product of many generations, but overcoming it must be the great project of this generation."
In a speech that was more radical than some anticipated, 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 that the 60 per cent target set out in the Climate Change Bill was not ambitious enough to curtail climate change.
Mr Brown referred to the current study on decarbonising the road transport sector, led by Professor Julia King. He said: "there are exciting new vehicle technologies just over the horizon: commercial hybrid engines, and soon plug-in hybrids, fully electric cars, hydrogen fuel cells".
He commented that Professor King believes that a halving of average emissions by 2030 - to around 80 grammes per kilometre - is feasible.
In terms of the EU passenger car CO2 regulations proposed for 2012, the Prime Minister said that "Britain will now press for a second, ambitious EU target of 100 grammes per kilometre by 2020, or no later than 2025".
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.
For the full speech and reports see the associated links.
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