Brown Promises to Go Green

Flush from his “successful” summit at the G20, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is now preparing for his next test: his budget in two weeks times.

His room for manoeuvre is limited with the pot of money largely seen as being empty. Even still Brown is promising a green Budget month to kick start moves towards a low carbon economy, including the mass introduction of electric cars on Britain’s roads.

In an exclusive interview with the Independent, Gordon Brown promised to make Britain a world leader in producing and exporting electric cars, hybrid petrol-electric vehicles and lighter cars using less petrol. He intends to create “green” cities geared towards electric cars in the drive to create 400,000 new jobs. Trials for electric cars in two or three cities will begin next year with councils invited to bid to become Britain’s first “green cities”.

But no one is saying how the electricity to produce these cars would be produced: if it was coal, oil, gas – this could exacerbate climate change. And nuclear is no solution either.

Other measures to be outlined by the Government include relaxing planning rules to allow the building of more wind farms to ensure Britain hits its target to generate 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

But then “Green Gordon” will trip up by announcing that his government wants to develop a “clean coal” industry. Many climate scientists, such as Jim Hansen from NASA, believe that this would be a disaster.

Gordon you should know that, what-ever way you spin it, coal can never be green, and you if you develop it you would always be Brown, and never Green.