Ed Miliband: No retreat from green agenda despite recession | Politics | guardian.co.uk

New energy and climate change secretary tells Patrick Wintour and Allegra Stratton the battle to stop climate change must continue

The new energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, insisted today that there must be no retreat from the government's climate change agenda in the face of the coming recession, as he prepared to accept proposals from Lord Turner's climate change committee tomorrow to increase Britain's statutory target to cut carbon emissions from 50% to 80% by 2050.

In his first interview since he was appointed secretary of state at the new Department for Environment and Climate Change, he claims many of the new jobs of the future will be green jobs, adding that the cost to taxpayers of failing to fix the environment will only be higher if it is not tackled now.

"The central argument of the Stern report is that the costs of not acting are worse than the costs of acting, and the longer you leave it, the worse it gets in terms of the costs. So I don't think there is an option not to act," Miliband told the Guardian.

He is due to respond tomorrow in the Commons to a recommendation from the government's climate change committee, chaired by Lord (Adair) Turner, that the government raise its target to cut carbon emissions to 80% by 2050 from 1990 levels.

Without being specific about his response tomorrow, Miliband makes it clear he shares Turner's assumption that the science has changed since the original 50% reduction target was set in 2000.

"It would not be true to say that after the events of the past three weeks that climate change is at the front of millions of people's minds. But politics is about leadership and that means saying this is an incredibly important issue not just for us but for our children," he said.
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He added that he wanted a bigger popular green movement. "Politicians cannot do this alone."

But Miliband will disappoint some NGOs by saying that aviation should not be included in emissions targets, arguing that "there is not a credible way of showing in relation to aviation it can be driven by renewables".

Airlines such as Virgin are pledging to use 5% renewable fuel by 2015.

Looking at the wider state of the debate on climate change, Miliband says "the argument about the science has been broadly won, but I do not think the argument on what individuals can do to make a difference has yet been won."

He said he thought government had to do more to make it easier for people to go green in their daily lives, and admitted that he was not a paragon of virtue in his personal life, even if he was trying to use his car less.

He said he was taken by the "thought experiment" on personal trading allowances of the foreign secretary, his brother David.

"This is my thought experiment on it," the climate change secretary said. "What is very smart about this idea is transparency, the idea that we get to know what our personal carbon emissions are. I do not say that is the end of the story - that is the very important first step along the road to personal carbon allowances. As to the long-term practicalities and how it would work, I don't know. I'll need to commission some work on it."