PM doesn't get climate issue: aide

12 April 2012

The Government's top environmental adviser has accused Gordon Brown of failing to see the importance of the environment and hindering work to prevent climate change.

Sir Jonathon Porritt, the chairman of the Government's Sustainable Development Commission, told The Independent that as Chancellor, Mr Brown did not "get" climate change and saw the environment as "middle-class stuff".

And he claimed that the environment is still no more important to him now that he is Prime Minister.

Sir Jonathon singled out Mr Brown's backing for a third runway at Heathrow Airport for particular criticism, describing it as a "ludicrous decision, with no serious intellectual, economic rationale".

He said the Prime Minister had "some incredibly fixed ideas about some of these things", adding: "He genuinely feels that a successful, competitive economy of the future has to be growing its aviation business in order to make UK plc more productive.

"And you can put the evidence about minimal economic benefit of a third runway in front of him - it won't go through the Brown brain."

Sir Jonathon, a former director of Friends of the Earth, compared Mr Brown's record on the environment unfavourably to that of his predecessor in Number 10, Tony Blair.

He said while Mr Blair tried to put the issue of global warming "high on the international agenda", Mr Brown "held the levers of power domestically" and "failed to deliver appropriate climate policy measures at home".

He went on: "Environment has never been Gordon Brown's strong suit. Tony Blair fully understood the risk of climate change, and whatever you may think about him his commitment on that was completely genuine."

But Oxford-educated Sir Jonathon did say Mr Brown has come to understand the seriousness of the climate change issue over the past 18 months and "has taken a number of important steps, such as setting up the new Energy and Climate Change Department".

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in