North East "uniquely placed" to benefit from response to climate change

12.45.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 19th Sep 2007

In one of many seminars held on the Environment at this year's Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference in Brighton local business leaders and politicians came together to discuss ways of improving the area's response to climate change and harnessing the region's huge potential.

The meeting was chaired by Alan Beith, MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, and Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Minister Chris Huhne MP, spoke on the need to tackle the issue of Britain's homes among other things.

"27% of Britain's carbon emissions come from homes. The energy bill for the average household in Britain is £385 more than it is in Sweden. Yet it is clearly much warmer in Britain and energy consumption should be less."

Representatives from Northumbrian Water and the Association of North East Councils informed the over-flowing assembly room of the gains that have been made and further plans to harness the power of the region to capitalise on and lead the way on climate change issues.

Liberal Democrat Newcastle City Councillor Gareth Kane, said:

"The skills present in the North East due to our traditional industries put us in a fantastic position. These are many of the very skills that are needed for the operation of sustainable energy production plants such as wind turbines.

"The North East is uniquely placed to benefit from a rapid and far-reaching response to the problems of climate change. We have made great progress so far. But we should take the extreme weather events of this summer to spur us on to even more ambitious targets and initiatives. It is in all our interests; businesses; councils; residents, to push ahead with reducing our carbon emissions."

It was announced recently by an independent review that the Liberal Democrats are the greenest of the three major parties in British politics. The Liberal Democrats were awarded three stars, Labour one and the Conservatives none.