Global Warming: Green lobby says Brown is 'tinkering at margins' in fight against climate change

Doubling airport tax to £10 and raising petrol duty last night by 1.25p per litre were presented as part of a "green budget" to combat global warming by Gordon Brown but disappointed environmental campaigners.

The Chancellor left drivers of 4x4 "Chelsea tractors" largely unscathed in spite of predictions he would clobber "gas-guzzling" cars and he refused to restore the fuel-duty escalator which would lead to automatic rises in the price of petrol in line with inflation.

Friends of the Earth criticised the Chancellor for failing to take tougher action in his pre-Budget report to tackle climate change. The environmental campaign group said green measures he announced were just "tinkering in the margins".

The director of FoE, Tony Juniper, said the Stern Review set out the urgent action needed to tackle climate change. But the Chancellor's response was "feeble". "Key green initiatives have been ignored, and those that he has introduced are inadequate. Much more is required to make it easier and cheaper for people to play their part in cutting rising UK carbon dioxide levels," Mr Juniper said.

The Chancellor is expected to load bigger increases in Vehicle Excise Duty on family cars with bigger engines in his spring Budget. But Treasury officials hinted that he has no intention of hurting the middle classes with his last Budget before becoming prime minister. Meanwhile, the Tories mocked his green credentials. "He is pretending to be green because we have taken a lead on green issues but he is not," said a senior Conservative official. "He has alienated families by raising taxes without balancing them by tax cuts which is what we would do."

The Liberal Democrats proposed a tax of £2,000 on 4x4s as part of measures to cut CO2 emissions, and the Tories also called for higher green taxes, provided they were not regressive. But there is already evidence that 4x4 sales are falling in the face of threats by the London mayor, Ken Livingstone, to increase the congestion charge on the most polluting vehicles to £25 a day.

Mr Brown announced that petrol would be raised last night by an inflation-based increase of 1.25p per litre, ending a three-year freeze. He also proposed a package of measures to encourage more drivers to use biofuels and liquid petroleum gas.

He set out an ambition for all new homes to be zero-carbon rated within a decade, with a time-limited exemption from stamp duty from next year on houses that meet the zero-carbon standard.

Doubling air passenger duty will raise £1bn but airlines said it would do nothing to tackle global warming. It was introduced by Kenneth Clarke, a Tory chancellor, and halved to £5 by Mr Brown in April 2001 after protests by budget airlines. The Treasury has considered raising it since 2003. Yesterday, Mr Brown reversed his decision, increasing the tax on short-haul flights to £10 from 1 February next year, with £20 on business class. The tax on long-haul flights will be £40 on economy seats and £80 on business class. A spokesman for easyJet said: "Simply raising the tax does not do anything for the environment. It simply gives Gordon Brown more money."

Vincent Cable, the Lib Dem spokesman on Treasury affairs, said the Eddington report last week for the Chancellor had called for an expansion of airports, casting further doubt on his climate-change commitment.

Other measures announced by Mr Brown included: increasing the climate-change levy on industry in line with inflation; exempting householders from income tax if they sell energy created by domestic windmills; a possible "vignette" tax on foreign lorries for using British roads; and plans to support a "mature global-emissions trading market".