Brown takes green message global

Gordon Brown will today call for a global emissions trading scheme to ensure the whole international community is involved in tackling climate change.

The chancellor will insist that economic growth and environmental care can progress together, but will say there must be a "new global consensus" to make this happen.

He will be speaking to the United Nations in New York, where he will propose that the European emissions trading scheme (ETS), where companies buy and sell credits to produce carbon emissions, be expanded across the world.

Tomorrow, he will seek support from the G7 in Washington for research into alternative sources of energy, before visiting the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Saturday to urge help for developing countries to allow them to cope with rising oil prices.

On Sunday, Mr Brown will attend a meeting of the World Bank, where he will call for $20 billion to help diversify the supply of energy to developing countries.

"For years no international consensus has been possible that recognises how our duty of stewardship to the environment can be discharged while delivering economic and social progress," he wrote in today's Independent.

"But I believe that global economic goals and global environmental goals are converging and can reinforce each other, and that the basis for a new global consensus which all countries should be challenged to join lies in new detailed and substantive policies."

His speech comes as Conservative leader David Cameron visits Norway to see at first-hand the effect of global warming on the country's glaciers, and to look at some of the technology they are using to provide sustainable energy, such as geothermal power.

Both the Tories and Labour are battling it out to prove who is the most green ahead of the local elections on May 4th, with the former promising that people who "vote blue" will "go green", and the latter citing their efforts to tackle climate change in government.

In an interview with the BBC last night, Mr Brown took a dig at Mr Cameron, whom Labour has accused of only being green on the outside – and created a party political broadcast based entirely on that basis.

"You are going to be judged in the end on the deeds, on what you've been able to do and how you bring the rest of the world around to the policies that need to be followed," the chancellor said.

However, in a separate article in today's Independent, Mr Cameron argued the Tories have already taken action in signing a cross-party statement calling for annual emissions cutting targets – which Labour rejected as impractical.

He added: "I am determined that the Conservative party will take a lead on the environment and I believe we have the right values to succeed – an understanding of markets, a belief in conservation, a recognition that we need to aim for green growth and a passion to pass on a better world for future generations."