Britain’s Brown: Economy Will Not Block Efforts to Cut Carbon

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the global economic downturn will not undermine the U.K.’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions and meet renewable energy targets. The government remains committed to providing 15 percent of the nation’s energy needs with renewable sources — including wind and wave energy — by 2020, Brown told the British Wind Energy Association. A report in the Observer newspaper had called Brown’s wind targets increasingly unrealistic without a “huge injection of public money,” because of project delays, rising costs, and an increasing wait to connect to the national grid. “You may have heard some people say that these difficult economic times should or will reduce the government’s commitment to building a low carbon economy,” Brown said. “They should not and will not.”