Leading article: Brown should be greener

This is one of those moments when fine words are tested. In recent months and years, we have heard plenty of calls to action on climate change, phrased in increasingly urgent terms. Yet there is still a common perception, as Peter Ainsworth, the Conservative spokesman, put it yesterday, that "at the first whiff of economic difficulty the green agenda dies". That is the old thinking, and Mr Ainsworth rightly chastised the Prime Minister for falling into it. A steep rise in oil prices is precisely the time when it is most important to argue for and defend green policies. That is why we present the choice in our coverage today as that between a Brown future and a green future.

The rise in fuel prices has shown the Prime Minister in his true colour, and it is not green. At his "summit" meeting with oil industry bosses last week, and at his monthly news conference the week before, what most animated him was the need to pump more oil out of the ground.

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What an opportunity missed. Gordon Brown could have said that he felt our financial pain, but the high oil price was telling us something: that we are burning too much high-carbon fuel. He could have said that, to ease the transition, he was cancelling the 2p rise in petrol duty planned for October – everyone knows that he will, so he might as well take the credit now – but that we are going to have to get used to more expensive carbon-based energy. He could have gone further. He could have said that, if the price of oil comes down substantially, that reduction would be partly offset by green taxes, the proceeds of which would be returned to taxpayers in ways that would encourage green behaviour. That would help to lock in long-term expectations of high oil prices, while also emphasising that green taxes should be about rewards as well as penalties.

That is a point that David Cameron has made. It has allowed the Conservatives to oppose the rise in car tax for gas guzzlers, because it will raise a net £1bn a year. But – we admit through gritted teeth – Mr Cameron has a point. The car tax change is misconceived because it risks discrediting the idea of green taxes, which should be balanced by green tax cuts. This is no way to win public support for the big changes in lifestyle that responsible stewardship of the planet requires.

Mr Brown's true colour is a disappointment, but it is not a surprise. During his year as Prime Minister, he has been inconsistent. Last November, he gave a green speech that used all the right words. Three days later, Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Transport, announced her support for a third runway at Heathrow. Then, John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, gave the go-ahead for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth. Yet, as we report today, a report commissioned by Mr Hutton's own department has set out how, within 12 years, nine million homes might be powered by renewable energy – something it would take five power stations to do.

However, this would require a strategic shift in public policy. It would require the Government to make the choice of a green future rather than a Brown one, and to show real leadership in this alternative approach. It would require a repudiation of the centralised approach that has dominated official thinking since the Second World War. Instead of a "predict and provide" model by which the central state decides how many power stations are needed, and where, we need to move to a devolved energy model in which the state sets green incentives and allows producers, including small producers and individual households, and consumers to respond.

That is the subtext of the incipient revolt by Labour MPs against changes to planning law to make it easier to get big infrastructure projects approved. The rebels are right and the Government is wrong.

Much of a decentralised energy policy sounds rather technical, as it involves "feed-in tariffs" and "combined heat and power" schemes, but they can do it in Germany, so why not here? To its credit, the Conservative Party has done some serious, detailed and – let us be honest – rather boring work on how such a policy might be put into practice. Mr Cameron gave a widely ignored speech on the subject in December with more clarity and conviction than Messrs Brown or Hutton.

The outlines of the green choice are clear. Parts of it are visible, scattered across Government like green shoots. Mr Brown has his back to the wall, and is being urged by his friends to throw caution to the winds and do what is right in the next two years rather than what he thinks might be popular. At the moment, he gives every sign of making the wrong choice for this country and the world. If he does so, he risks ceding a critical issue to Mr Cameron.