PM's vision for 400,000 'eco-jobs'

The Prime Minister will call for an international "green new deal" to boost the environmental sector and help lift the global economy out of recession.

Mr Brown is launching the Government's industrial strategy to capitalise on the burgeoning low carbon economy at the summit in London attended by ministers and business leaders.

He will release independent research which, the Government says, shows a total of 1.3 million people will be employed in the environmental sector by 2017 - representing an annual growth rate of 5%.

In his address to the summit, Mr Brown will point to the fact a growing number of countries are already including "green" measures in their fiscal stimulus packages to stave off recession.

He will say that at his talks this week with US President Barack Obama in Washington, they agreed on the "imperative" of investing in the new "green" technologies as a way of creating jobs and growth.

"We know that the more we are able to co-ordinate these measures internationally, the more confidence and certainty we will build and the more investment we will be able to bring forward," he will say. "That's why I want to create a global 'green new deal' that will pave the way for a low carbon recovery and to help us build tomorrow's green economy today."

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who is also addressing the summit together with Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, said that tackling climate change did not just make moral sense, but economic sense too.

Unions and pressure groups, however, warned the Government needed to do more to promote renewable energy, as the UK was lagging behind the rest of Europe. The Renewable Energy Association called for immediate expenditure of £625 million in "green stimulus money".

Director-general Philip Wolfe, who will attend the summit, said: "Other countries have already committed huge sums to renewables as part of their stimulus packages, not just because renewables tackle the twin threats of climate change and energy security, but because they also offer the technological stimulus needed in a recession to create high-value jobs and enterprise. It is vital for the UK to stage a sustainable economic recovery and our investment package is an essential first step towards that."