Green Party conference opens

Thursday, 21 October 2004 8:46 AM

The Green Party's annual conference opens today in Weston Super Mare.

The Greens are to call on the main political parties to back up their rhetoric of environmental reform with hard-headed policies to protect the earth.

The Greens are opening for an electoral break through in the next general election, and over the four-day conference, delegates will also focus on improving public services, the renationalisation of the railways and tackling crime.

Delegates will also choose whether or not keep the party's two principal speakers, MEP Caroline Lucas and Keith Taylor.

Spencer Fitz-Gibbon, the party's spokesman on climate change, is expected to tell delegates that Labour and the Conservatives claim a green agenda but have yet to change their policies.

An emergency motion will call for a tougher target for cutting British carbon dioxide emissions by 90 per cent by 2050 or sooner.

The conference take place after a leading group of scientists warned that climate change could "reverse human progress" and dramatically affect the lives of the world's poorest.

Scientists from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development, a coalition of leading environmental and development agencies, are pressing for significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, beyond the parameters of the Kyoto Protocol.

The group, which includes charities such as Greenpeace, Oxfam and Action Aid, called for cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases by industrialised countries of 60 to 80 per cent on 1990 levels by 2050.

They say the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, aimed at on halving global poverty by 2015, are "unattainable" if action is not taken immediately.

Failing to take drastic measures could see average global temperatures rise by two degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels, the group warned.

Ominously, the scientists said global warming was already upon us, with severe weather events such as hurricanes and typhoons delivering a foreboding message of more to come.

The report, Up In Smoke, was launched on Wednesday in London by Dr RK Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Dr Pachauri said the world was faced with a "disaster process" which could lead to several disasters.

He said the poorest countries would be most affected by global problem and are the least prepared for it.

Tony Blair said last week he would use Britain's presidency of the EU and G8 in 2005 to push for concerted environmental action on climate change.

The US, the world's biggest polluter, who has refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, but Russia has recently said that it will sign up to the protocol.

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