PM stresses importance of green economy

Prime minister Gordon Brown stressed the importance of the green economy in his speech to the Labour Party conference.

Brown pledged to set up a £1bn innovation fund to boost industry. Brown said that the UK’s “future economy must be a green economy” and said that innovation fun would back the “creativity and inventions that are essential to that economy.”

The prime minister also announced the creation of 10,000 green work placements from a partnership with the Eden Project and Mayday Network. The government will offer 10,000 new skilled internships in partnership with the Federation of Small Business.

Brown said: “We are already global leaders in wind power, green cars, clean coal and carbon capture. And now we will lead again, with new designated low carbon zones around the regions of this country. And I say to you today – we will create over a quarter of a million new green British jobs.”

The prime minister also said that he would head to the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, to be held in December, “with our British plan to secure a climate change deal this year.”