Following UK Chancellor Gordon Brown's pre-budget report yesterday, which raised 'green' taxes on motor and air travel and offered incentives for greener homes, Christian Aid called for much more radical action to tackle climate change.

"The government's approach is horrifyingly piecemeal in the face of the greatest global threat of the modern age- climate change- which could wipe out the past 50 years of human development,"
said Christian Aid's climate change analyst Andrew Pendleton.

"Mr Brown has devoted much effort in recent years to the fight against poverty. But climate change threatens to undermine all that
he and others have achieved. It requires a truly heroic effort.

"Unfortunately, the chancellor does not appear to be the caped crusader that we need to save the lives of hundreds of millions of the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet. We need an exhaustive look at our economy, not just fiddling round the edges.

"The Labour government must move towards some proper joined up thinking. It must introduce a climate change law that would require comprehensive annual budgeting for a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions," said Mr Pendleton.

Christian Aid is campaigning for a UK climate change law that would require the government to achieve average annual cuts of around five per cent per year in UK carbon dioxide emissions.

Policies to achieve this would be recommended and monitored by an independent body, which would include representatives from communities in the developing world hardest hit by climate change.

Last month, college students representing more than 1,500 young evangelicals from 41 US states presented a statement urging government and religious leaders to take definitive action against global warming.

The statement entitled, "Cooling Our Future: A Declaration by Young Evangelicals on Climate Change," was presented by 30 students from Christian colleges. In the declaration's opening, students expressed their concern about global warming as "the degradation of God's creation".