Around the world: United Kingdom
Brown goes green
Britain's leader-in-waiting Gordon Brown, eager to seize the green initiative on a vital election battleground, yesterday announced plans to build five environmentally friendly and affordable "eco-towns."
Polls show Brown, expected to take over next month when Tony Blair steps down after 10 years as prime minister, has a fight on his hands to combat the rejuvenated Conservatives under their young leader David Cameron. In the run-up to the next election expected in 2009, the main political parties are vying to extol their green policies.
A billion climate refugees
Global warming will create at least one billion refugees by 2050 as water shortages and crop failures force people to leave their homes, sparking local wars over access to resources, a leading aid agency said today.
In its report Human tide: The real migration crisis, the UK's Christian Aid said that as the developed world was responsible for most of the climate-changing pollution, it should bear the brunt of the cost of helping those worst hit by it - the poor.
Agencies
(China Daily 05/14/2007 page6)
