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Go green Mr Brown
• LAST week, Gordon Brown finally became Prime Minister, a new job with a daunting number of challenges. The biggest of all of these has to be tackling climate change.
Ministers admit they will not meet targets on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases that were included in three of their election manifestos.
Mr Brown has to share the blame for this, but has a real chance to make amends.
Against a backdrop of huge public and corporate support for green solutions, Mr Brown will take over responsibility for the Climate Change Bill. If he is serious about tackling climate change, he will have to ensure this law is up to the job. The current bill is just not tough enough. Its targets are too low to stop dangerous climate change and it does not even count most emissions from aeroplane flights.
Worse still, the proposal is to monitor targets every five years, which will almost always span more than one term of government. This will make it easier for politicians to blame preceding governments for any missed targets.
For all our sakes, Mr Brown really has to be Mr Green – and he must start by ensuring the Climate Change Bill leads to cuts in carbon dioxide emissions of at least three per cent a year.
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