Alistair Darling has squandered a huge opportunity to create a low-carbon economy and create thousands of green jobs by investing in renewable energy and cutting energy waste on the scale required, Friends of the Earth Cymru said today.

The environmental campaign group also warned that legally-binding, short-term targets for cutting UK emissions - which were announced today as part of the Chancellor's Budget package - are far too weak to enable the UK to play its part in avoiding dangerous climate change. Climate experts have warned that this should be an emissions cut of at least 40 per cent by 2020 [1].

Failure to tackle climate change puts Welsh people at greater risk from the flooding, drought, rising sea levels, resource wars and economic and food supply collapse that runaway global warming would cause.

Setting a low target for cutting emissions also puts Britain in a weak position to provide international leadership at crucial UN talks on a new climate deal at Copenhagen later this year.

Friends of the Earth Cymru's Director Gordon James said: "This is a small and timid step in the right direction, but falls well short of what is needed to tackle both climate change and the economic recession. It is a missed opportunity by the UK Government to kick-start a green industrial revolution that would put thousands of people back to work.

"The £400 million for improving energy efficiency, for instance, is welcome but is nowhere near enough to make Britain's housing stock energy efficient. We believe an investment of £7 billion is required - which would create 75,000 jobs, cut fuel bills for everyone, eliminate fuel poverty and improve health.

"Once again, we have plenty of green rhetoric but insufficient policies to put us on the path to a low-carbon economy. Leaders around the world agree that the future lies in new green technologies, but Gordon Brown's promise of creating 400,000 green collar jobs will not be delivered by today's budget.

"The Government should be sprinting towards a low carbon future - instead it's limping along. Ministers must urgently re-think their approach to climate change ahead of crucial UN talks in Copenhagen later this year."

NOTES

1. 'Making a Climate Commitment: Analysis of the first Report (2008) of the UK Climate Change by the Tyndall Centre, Manchester University, March 09

For further information please contact Friends of the Earth Cymru on 029 2022 9577