Lobby groups call on party leaders to endorse green election manifesto

A coalition of the UK's leading environmental groups will today call on the three main political parties to sign up to a detailed pre-election commitment designed to ensure the environment and the fight against climate change is treated as the highest priority in the next parliament.

The Common Cause declaration, which has been issued to coincide with the launch of Party conference season, calls on the main political parties to recognise their responsibility for accelerating "the prominence of climate change and the natural environment in both political debate and action, and on the ground".

It also urges them to commit to using the "full range of regulatory, fiscal, spending and other powers" to promote the development of a more environmentally sustainable economy.

It has been endorsed by eight of the UK's most high-profile environmental lobby groups, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, RSPB, WWF, and sustainable business think-tank the Green Alliance.

The group also called on party leaders to sign up to a 10-point green manifesto proposal that would commit them to delivering deep cuts in carbon emissions of 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, increasing investment in low-carbon technology, and paying into a $160bn (£97bn) global climate adaptation fund.

Stephen Hale, director of Green Alliance, said the declaration and manifesto proposals provided a benchmark against which the political parties' electoral commitments to the environment should be measured.

"Support for the Common Cause declaration will be the threshold for credibility at the next election on environmental issues," he said. "The commitment to decisive action must be endorsed by all parties. The real contest will be over specific policies, so we urge them to include our 10 manifesto asks for 2010 in their forthcoming manifestos."

However, while the environment and climate change are expected to play a high-profile role during next year's election, it is unlikely the three main political parties will endorse manifesto pledges that go far beyond the UK's existing Climate Change Act, which commits successive governments to cutting emissions to 34 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.