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G20 'is determined to tackle climate change'
Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor30.03.09
MINISTERS insisted the G20 would offer a step-change on the environment today despite claims from green groups that Britain was failing its own duties to tackle global warming.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband claimed that Gordon Brown had achieved a "remarkable" breakthrough in putting climate change on the agenda for the summit this week.
The Treasury and the Department of Energy and Climate Change have been working for weeks on plans to persuade leading nations to sign up to spending billions on green jobs that will help slash greenhouse gas emissions and "embed" low-carbon technologies across the world. G20 nations are working on a deal to pledge to expand their environmental industries by 50 per cent within the next decade.
Mr Miliband said: "One of the remarkable things that our Prime Minister has achieved since the Washington summit is to broaden the agenda, so that it's not just about finance. It's about the economy and about low carbon."
But the Government was embroiled in a dispute with environmentalists after a report claimed that new funding for "green" measures amounted to just 0.6 per cent of its multi-billion-pound plan for stimulating the UK economy.
Research for Greenpeace found that bonuses paid to bankers at the RBS were seven times higher than additional spending on the green economy.
Climate change protesters are set to be among the most vociferous groups in London this week.
Reader views (3)
This will possibly be the very last item on their agenda! (if they haven't all rushed off to the airport to catch their flights home, that is)
- Marianne, SW France
If the G20 was really determined to tackle "climate change", they would do this junket via video conference. That would save a few tonnes of carbon and would also prevent London from becoming a no-go area later this week.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland
Anyone calculated the greenhouse gasses produced by everyone attending tjhis junket? It's all rubbish more nonsense from our blah blah government and PM.
- Andrew, Leaving the sinking ship England
