PM sees green jobs vital to recovery

Reuters
Published: March 6, 2009

By Gerard Wynn and Peter Griffiths
Britain's economic recovery depends on jobs and investment from a "vast expansion" of carbon-cutting technologies such as wind power and efficiency measures, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Friday.
Brown chaired a meeting of business leaders meant to rally ideas for what he called a new industrial strategy, to promote a green economy which he said would employ 1.3 million Britons by 2017, 400,000 more than now. "I don't think we will have the strength of recovery we need unless as a central part of that there is a low-carbon recovery," he said, referring to a needed economic boost.
"For climate change, energy price stability and energy security we need to act," he added, referring to longer benefits of diversifying away from fossil fuels.
Britain is in recession, unemployment has risen to two million and Brown is under pressure to create jobs before an election which must be held by mid-2010. The Bank of England cut interest rates to a record low on Thursday.
Today in Business with Reuters
Unemployment in U.S. hits 25-year-high
Britain takes control of Lloyds in £260 billion bailout
Borrowing in U.S. rises unexpectedly
Business Secretary Peter Mandelson told the business meeting that Britain had no high-carbon future, and said the global green economy was already worth 3 trillion pounds.
"There is a low-carbon race on," said energy and climate change minister Ed Miliband, using the example of the United Arab Emirates' plans for a $15 billion (10.5 billion pound) zero carbon city.
The government drew criticism for not announcing new measures of its own on Friday, for example to boost clean energy investment stalled by a credit squeeze.
"We need fewer speeches and more ambitious action from this government," said Greenpeace executive director John Sauven.
The world has already committed an estimated $200 billion to the green economy under economic stimulus plans, and especially the United States and European Union.
Additional measures such as loan guarantees were needed to unblock project finance, say industry experts and advisers. Mandelson said the government would consider interim support.
"(We will) look at this across a range of claims and demands ... to help bridge these funding gaps."
A protester against the planned expansion of Heathrow airport threw green custard at Mandelson as he arrived at the meeting in central London. The government approved plans in January for the expansion of the airport.
Brown said he wanted a meeting in London on April 2 of the G20 leading developed and emerging economies, aimed at stabilising financial markets, to help coordinate green stimulus spending from China to the United States.
"I want to see the G20 meeting in London as an opportunity to begin the construction of a global green new deal," he said.
In the 1930s, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" helped to lift the United States out of the Great Depression.
-- Additional reporting by Stefano Ambrogi