Speaking at an event hosted by the Aldersgate Group, Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Caroline Flint, today outlined the opposition's plan for an active green industrial strategy. Here is the speech in full.

When I took over the brief as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change, I was aware of the contradiction that, on the one hand, the BBC's Frozen Planet was gaining record viewing figures of nearly eight million;

On the other, public attitudes showed that just one month later, the number of people who rated the environment as important was just four per cent.

My gut instinct told me that central to my brief were prices, jobs and security.

Prices - because we must have an energy market that delivers fair, competitive prices and works in the public interest.

Jobs - because as the UK seeks new growth and jobs, energy generation and energy efficiency have the potential to transform our economy.

And Security - because the first responsibility of every Government is to keep the lights on.

That's the only way we'll build a consensus for tackling climate change.

We are fortunate in the UK that one of the legacies of Labour's period in office was broad acceptance of the need to tackle climate change.

The acceptance by the present Government of Labour's climate change targets set out in the 2008 Climate Change Act, led me to believe that Labour had created a new cross-party consensus. That clarity of direction underpins the attractiveness of the UK to green investment.

Today, the question marks over the Government's green credentials have proliferated and raise genuine scepticism over whether the Government is sincere in its support for that consensus and open for green business.

Labour is not alone in expressing concern at rising unemployment; one million young people without work; or the lack of growth in our economy.

Those concerns find echoes in the business community. The Lloyds Business barometer for December showed 75 per cent of businesses believing the UK was headed for another recession; only one in five businesses expect to recruit additional staff and trading prospects have fallen across all regions and sectors.

Yet a new era of economic transformation is upon us - one that will create growth and investment opportunities, but only if Government can grasp the nettle.

Labour believes that the UK must have an active industrial strategy to seize the opportunities green economic growth can create. A new energy industrial revolution beckons, and our country must embrace it without delay.

The starting point is the question of climate change and the corresponding drive to reduce emissions.

Is this a threat to business or an opportunity?

Two well-rehearsed arguments are in contention for the ear of business and Government.

On the one side are those who argue that Government-led action on climate change is a threat to growth - an unnecessary burden on business - a lead weight around the neck of UK plc. That view says that economic growth is not possible if we tackle climate change,

The likes of the present Chancellor not only believe that the green agenda is bad for business, bad for jobs and bad for growth, but actively revel in their contempt for environmental protection. According to this view, environmental policies are a luxury that can only ever be afforded when times are good.

It is an argument, I believe we should firmly reject.

On the other side, there is the view that all economic growth threatens to deplete the world of resources; that the need to protect the planet means that advanced societies should break with their addiction to the motor car; end holidays abroad; and focus on quality of life rather than material consumption. The West, they believe should accept a lower standard of living in the interests of the planet.

Both the 'extreme eco view' and the Tory right share one central premise - that economic growth and environmental sustainability are inherently irreconcilable.

One forsakes the environmental policies; the other forsakes the growth.

I reject both arguments.

History shows us that only economic growth spreads wealth and prosperity and with it the means to reduce poverty and civilise societies.

There is a path between untrammelled growth at all costs; and a zero growth world. We can grow our economy and benefit the planet; we can provide for our citizens and meet their aspirations without ruining our planet. It is not a zero sum game.

Investing in the green economy is not just a route out of recession, but a necessary and urgent adaptation to the economy and society we will need in the decades ahead.

It is not something that can wait for our economy to emerge into those broad, sunlit uplands. An optional addition afforded only once prosperous times have returned.

The transition to a low carbon economy must begin now, during the toughest of times; preparing the road for recovery.

This is not a journey of economic altruism - but a battle for economic survival.

We are on the cusp of a new industrial revolution, which is shaking up the old world order. The UK can be followers or leaders in that revolution.

The longer we delay action, the costlier mitigating and adapting to climate change will become. And the economic opportunities will slip through our fingers.

Our society did not reach this point without centuries of economic convulsion. Convulsions that created economic advance by harnessing technological change.

Successful economies are those that adapt to new technologies quickest, build the new industrial base for that era and plan the transition to avoid huge economic shocks.

Countries that first introduced rail networks in the 19th century made the fastest industrial progress. Linking their manufacturing bases with their sources of power; their goods with the ports.

The German post-war rebuilding created a new industrial base. Their production embraced cars, machines, electrical equipment, furniture - investment in manufacturing industries that underpinned their economic growth for decades; and continues to do so today.

The companies and countries that seized on the emerging communications technologies of the 20th century, saw their economies gain advantage. Frances Cairncross noted in her 1997 book The Death of Distance that the telephone, invented in 1876, was crossing the Atlantic by the 1930s, so by 1956 J Paul Getty could run his Californian oil empire from hotel rooms in Europe.

More recently, the information superhighway; broadband and mobile technologies, the grandchildren of the electronic computer first invented in the 1940s, are transforming the way our economies and societies function.

Such is the power of this revolution that Apple is now the world's most valuable company overtaking oil giant Exxon Mobil; Google sits at about 12th and the Facebook IPO would place it in the 30 most valuable companies.

The next big transition in economic terms is the move from high carbon power to low carbon.

We need to develop plans on the grid enhancements, high-speed rail network, carbon capture and storage pipelines, distributed generation technologies, integrated recycling plants, energy efficiency improvements and electric vehicle charging networks that are the platforms for green growth of the economy as a whole.

These will underpin national prosperity in the 21st century in exactly the way the motorway networks underpinned prosperity in the 20th century and the railways in the 19th.

The lessons of history tell us that the early adopters win.

The movers, the visionaries, the investors lock in their advantages; create oases of ideas; clusters of creativity; pools of knowledge and skills.

They are the companies and nations that change the world and walk away with the prizes.

Would anyone today dispute that the green arms race has already started?

A race for dominance of a global market already worth £3.2tr.

Global investment in clean energy reached a new high of £169bn last year - a five percent increase since 2010, even amidst a global economic slowdown.

And in this race, the tectonic plates are shifting away from the developed world.

HSBC predicts that the share of the three largest industrialised low carbon markets, the USA, the EU and Japan will fall from 60 per cent in 2009 to 53 per cent in 2020, while China, India and Brazil will grow from 25 per cent to 34 per cent.

I believe those countries are not just acting to respond to climate change, but they are putting in place the productive sectors to respond to the inevitable economic demands of this new era.

In the green arms race, for UK plc the stakes could not be higher.

And yet, the UK is falling behind.

Since this Government came to power, the UK has slipped from third in the world for investment in green growth to thirteenth - behind countries like Brazil and India.

In 2009, investment in alternative energy and clean technology reached £7bn.

That fell by over 70 per cent the year this Government was elected.

And the latest figures for last year seem to suggest that if there was any pick-up it was very modest, and investment levels are still considerably below where they were in 2009.

Yesterday I read that the new Secretary of State had declared that even though there has been a change at the helm, 'there'll be no change in direction or ambition'.

But unless our ambition is for the UK to fall further still.

A change is exactly what we need.

The UK's decline in the green race hasn't happened by chance or by accident, or because of decisions made by other governments or factors beyond our control.

It's happened for three reasons.

Firstly, because of the Government's mixed messages.

Before the election, George Osborne said this:

'I want a Conservative Treasury to be in the lead of developing the low carbon economy and financing a green recovery.'

But look at what he's said since:

To cheap applause from Tory party members at Conference last year, he pledged:

'We're going to cut our carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe.'

And in the autumn statement, to placate his own backbenches, he said that environmental measures and the transition to a low-carbon economy was a 'burden' on British businesses.

Last year, investment in wind power fell by 40 per cent compared to the year before.

This week, support for wind power has come under pressure from a group of 100 Conservative MPs.

For a business looking to invest in UK wind power how confident can they be that the Government won't cave in?

Maybe the Chancellor thinks that it's actions, not words that count.

But those throwaway remarks have real market consequences.

They create uncertainty, and make the UK a less attractive place to invest.

And even when people do still want to invest, they raise the cost of capital, by increasing the perception of risk in whether or not the government has the political will to deliver.

Investors don't want synthetic hand-wringing from Cabinet ministers professing their green credentials and decrying the malign influence of the Treasury.

They don't want carefully choreographed public spats through the press.

They want to know that Government will champion their cause and provide clarity and coherence to support delivery.

But it's not just the Government's pronouncements that are the problem, it's their policies too.

The second reason the UK is falling behind our rivals in the race for a low carbon economy is simply this Government's sheer incompetence.

The best example of that is their chaotic mismanagement of the reduction in the tariff level for solar power.

No one disputes the need to reduce the tariff level. Not even the solar industry is asking for that.

But the way this Government has handled the process - giving just six weeks' notice, trying to bring the cuts into force before the consultation had even finished, changing the eligibility criteria so that nine out of ten homes would be excluded - has real implications for investor confidence.

Some people might think that in the grand scale of total investment in renewable energy, what happens to the solar industry isn't all that important.

I don't agree.

At a time when the economy is flat-lining and unemployment is rising, we have to ask ourselves what sort of Government chooses to destroy an industry that is actually growing and creating jobs.

And when you look at Germany, which is still second in the world for investment in clean energy, in 2010, 88% of its clean energy investments were in solar, and 83% were in small-scale projects.

In any case, what's happened to the solar industry in this country has implications for investment in the green economy as a whole.

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