Should the Labour party take power in the upcoming general election Miliband will attend the UN summit in Paris in December where it is hoped a new binding global agreement to tackle climate change by limiting greenhouse gas emissions will be agreed.
Miliband said in a tweet that his new advisor “knows how to knock heads together” and it will help a Labour government, should they win the general election in May, to get an international climate deal.
Prescott was an “instrumental figure” as the lead EU negotiator in 1997 in the formation of the Kyoto Protocol which got the countries signed up to the deal to commit to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
On his new role, Prescott said in his column for the Daily Mirror: “My brief is to engage heads of state and governments, to raise their ambition. He’s also asked me to bash heads together. Intellectually, of course!”
The Labour peer said he is “prepared to work with the current UK government” ahead of the negotiations in Paris, adding “this should be above politics – we need to work together”.
Ed Miliband also accused the current government of allowing climate change to fall off the agenda and for “contradictory signals on energy policy” creating a “deep uncertainty for investors”.
He added that a climate deal in Paris, coupled with Labour’s plans to introduce a 2030 decarbonisation target – and ahead of the coalition government’s current plans to introduce a target in 2016 – will “give business certainty to invest” in green technology.