Scrap UK pollution targets, says Brown

Gordon Brown and other senior cabinet ministers have been pushing for the Government to scrap its target for reducing emissions of the main pollutant that causes global warming, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

The Chancellor, the Secretary of State for Transport, Alastair Darling, and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Alan Johnson, pressed at a meeting, chaired by Mr Blair, of the Environment and Energy Cabinet Committee for the abandonment of a promise to reduce emissions of CO2 by 20 per cent by 2010, even though this formed part of Labour's election manifesto just six months ago.

So far, the Prime Minister has said the Government will stick to its commitment, though he came under fire last week for casting doubt on whether to set new international targets to cut emissions in future.

At a special meeting of rich and poor nations on the issue, at Lancaster House, he called for "a better and more sensitive set of mechanisms" than pollution-reduction targets.

So far, UK emissions are only 3 per cent below their level