British finance minister Gordon Brown will call on Monday for international action to tackle global warming and argue the best way to change people's behaviour is through education and incentives, not taxation. In what aides are billing as major speech on the environment just months before he is widely expected to take over from Prime Minister Tony Blair, Brown will set out his thinking on what is turning into a key battleground for the next election, expected in 2009.

And with just over a week to go until his annual budget, Brown looks unlikely to sanction any big rises in so-called "green" taxes. The opposition Conservatives, currently way ahead of Brown's Labour party in the polls, proposed on Sunday a range of new duties on air travel, such as charging VAT on domestic flights or getting frequent fliers to pay a higher rate of tax.

But Brown will argue harnessing the citizens' desires to be environmentally conscious is the only way reductions in carbon emissions can be achieved in a fair and just way. "People want to make the right choices and they want help to take the right decisions. Government must provide practical help with, where ever possible, incentives in preference to penalties," he will say, according to Treasury officials.

"Changes must be considered, costed, credible and consumer friendly not ill-conceived, short-termist, unworkable and unfair." Brown doubled air passenger duty and raised the tax on fuel in his prebudget report in December, but environmental groups said that fell short of what was needed. The Treasury argues that many green taxes are regressive and hit the poor. The Conservative Party said air passenger duty was flawed as it was not linked to carbon emissions. They said their proposals instead target more polluting aircraft or people who fly more often.

"Our consultation shows how this can be done in a way that does not tax people out of their one foreign holiday a year but instead focuses on dirtier aircraft and more frequent fliers," Conservative shadow finance minister George Osborne said in a statement. Any tax rises will be balanced with tax cuts in other areas, the Conservatives said. But Brown, who believes action has to foremost be taken at an international level, will criticise the Conservatives' commitment to Europe and therefore ability to achieve meaningful solutions.

"Euro-scepticism and continentwide environmental action are at odds with each other," he will say. "A government ambivalent about the UK's future in Europe and allied to the most reactionary forces in the European Parliament would have no credibility, no influence and no achievements." The government will publish its climate change bill on Tuesday, setting a legal target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent by 2050.

Brown will say that setting such targets will mean that the government will have to account for carbon emissions in the same disciplined way it must account for tax and spending decisions. He will also set out a range of proposals to help people save energy in their homes and businesses.
(Por Sumeet Desai, Planet Ark, 13/03/2007)