STERN REPORT GATHERS DUST ONE YEAR ON GOVERNMENT IGNORES URGENT ENVIRONMENT PLEA (Cheltenham Liberal Democrats)

Cheltenham Liberal Democrats <info@cheltlibdems.org.uk>

STERN REPORT GATHERS DUST ONE YEAR ON GOVERNMENT IGNORES URGENT ENVIRONMENT PLEA

November 7, 2007 9:46 AM

12 Months after the Stern Report, local Liberal Democrats are warning that Gloucestershire could suffer from more extreme weather if action is not taken to tackle pollution.

Gloucestershire County Council Liberal Democrats gathered last week to mark the first anniversary of the Stern Report's publication, which detailed the British Government in no uncertain terms about the seriousness of climate change last year.

Cllr Roger Brown is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on the Environment and a member of the County Council's special committee tasked with reviewing the impact of the recent floods and learning lessons for the future. At the meeting, Cllr Roger Brown,

said:

"Last year the Stern Report highlighted the huge dangers we face if action is not taken to cut the pollution we are causing.

"One of the biggest pollutants, carbon dioxide, has a huge impact on our local environment leading to serious problems like severe storms and water shortages. We are still producing more and more of it all the time.

"In Gloucestershire we have now seen first hand the effects of Climate Change with the great flood of summer 2007. Last year Stern told us that this sort of thing might happen, and ultimately the Government has failed to protect us from these events. Until the Government gets serious about climate change there will continue to be a risk of future catastrophes.

"Ministers have failed to carry through any big policies needed to tackle climate change and global warming. And in some areas they have gone into reverse.

"One of Gordon Brown's first actions as Prime Minister was to downgrade the importance of a top cabinet committee on the environment. Now a coalition of important green groups, which includes Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the World Wide Fund for Nature, have pulled out of the government's nuclear consultation, claiming that ministers are distorting the evidence.

"And a decade under Brown as Chancellor saw the overall tax burden on pollution fall whilst that on incomes rose, making it cheaper to pollute.

"The Stern Report, praised by Mr Brown last year when it was published, is now gathering dust. The call for action is not being taken seriously by the Prime Minister or the Labour government."