David Miliband urges Labour to raise its game as leading campaigner Mark Lynas warns that 'techno-optimism' is a barrier to a serious agenda to tackle climate change.

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'The clock is ticking and the politicians have to get serious', green campaigner Mark Lynas told Environment Secretary David Miliband at the Fabian New Year Conference as a panel chaired by Lucy Siegle of The Observer debated how far climate change would demand significant changes in our lifestyles.

Mark Lynas, a New Statesman contributor, warned that the main parties needed to break with what he called the "techno-optimism that is close to a religion" which saw technological advances saving us from global warming. Lynas said he was 'ready to defect' from the Green Party to any of the main parties that truly took the environment seriously, by shifting the emphasis from faith in technology to personal responsibility. Lynas praised Environment Minister David Miliband's interest in carbon rationing, which he hoped to see taken up higher up in government.

Miliband developed the argument in his recent Fabian Next Decade lecture that no party could now win a future British election without being credible on the environment. This mainstreaming meant this was no longer a 'green issue' for Environment Ministers but an issue for all government departments and the whole of society.

Miliband argued that the Labour movement's values were necessary - an effective impact on global warming would depend on accepting social justice and acting internationally. This brought broad agreement from the panel and the floor, but Mark Lynas warned that the government "has got to stop making the problem worse" and has got to take it seriously at every level. Nick Butler suggested that the way to do this was to ensure there was a stronger central focus for the issue in Whitehall.

Stephen Hale of Green Alliance said that the Labour government had all too often fallen short on the issue due to self imposed restraints. He wanted to be 'surprised' by future environmental policy. Bold measures would be the only way for Labour to be taken seriously on green issues.

Nick Butler of the Centre for Energy Policy Studies in Cambridge, though agreeing with other speakers about the issue's importance, was more hopeful about the role that technology could play.

Butler called for more centralisation in terms of the research work that was done in the field, and suggested that a university department should be set up as a national centre into technological research. His view elicited a sceptical response from the tireless Environmental campaigner Meyer Hillman, speaking from the floor, who claimed that Mr Butler would need a 'chiropractor to help him uncross his fingers!'

In terms of public politics, Stephen Hale saw two fights to be won at the next election, one for environmental floating voters, and one a perception battle in the media. He reiterated the need for Labour to surprise the electorate if they were going to win both these battles. David Miliband accepted that government needed to do more - 'we've got to up our game' - but argued that a coherent and effective policy was more important than rhetoric.

While the panel speakers had focused on the role for government, many of the floor contributions discussed the need for localism and smaller scale projects to tackle global warming in a practical way, with ideas about reducing food miles, supporting small scale energy production, and the location of supermarkets.

Topics such as house building regulations and aviation policy also proved important to Fabian members, and it was on these more difficult issues that the disagreement on the panel re-emerged. As it closed, the debate returned to the over-arching problem: how much can technological advances help, and how much are governments and individuals going to have to take difficult decisions about lifestyle choices and environmental responsibility?

Environment: can't we get greener than this? at the Fabian New Year Conference 2007 with David Miliband MP, Mark Lynas (New Statsman), Stephen Hale (Green Alliance), Nick Butler (Centre for Energy Policy Studies) and chaired by Lucy Siegle (The Observer). This panel debate took part at the Fabian New Year Conference 'The Next Decade; on January 13, 2007, at Imperial College London.

Event Report: John Hitchin