Weren’t global issues supposed to be Gordon Brown’s speciality? With Bono, Bob Geldof and Bill Gates as his new best mates, he came to the aid of Africa’s poor a few years ago. In return he received the ultimate luvvie accolade: Richard Curtis, of Four Weddings and a Funeral fame, wrote a BBC television docu-drama that contrasted the caring Scotsman’s role in cutting Third World debt with a greasy Tony Blair’s desire to snatch the credit.

In his last months as chancellor Brown was practically working on the basis that if it wasn’t a threat to the world then it wasn’t a job worth doing - unless it was getting rid of his old friend Tony. Didn’t Gordon also commission Sir Nicholas Stern, the former chief economist at the World Bank, to produce a 700-page report that said it made for good business as well as good science to get on with tackling climate change here and now?

Yes, but Brown’s conversion to environmentalism was belated and partial. As a Treasury stalwart he is suspicious of the huge sums involved in getting us off our carbon kick. As a real Labour man, something in his bones tells him that green issues concern only the pampered, sauvignon-sipping classes of the south. Now, as if to rebuke his lack of faith, comes another annoying Blair reincarnation. TB is to lead a new international team to secure a global deal on climate change that will bring laggards like China and the United States on board the green band-waggon. This announcement followed within two days of a budget widely greeted as a “green” flop. So as Blair struts the international stage, Brown gets the dirty job of battling protesters who object to new airports and smelly coal-fired power stations.

Still, our prime minister can look forward this week to the visit of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and his unblushing bride, the glamorous Carla Bruni. Or can he? Almost the sole subject of conversation is likely to be That Man again. Monsieur Le Président Bling-Bling wants to make Blair the president of Europe. And, with Easter beckoning, the Blessed Tony will again be in the news when he starts work on inter-faith dialogue.

I owe Matthew Parris thanks for this item of useful doggerel, composed by an anonymous cabinet minister:

At Downing Street upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t Blair
He wasn’t Blair again today
Oh how I wish he’d go away.

Poor Mr Brown likes to talk the talk on green issues at foreign powwows but has seldom walked the walk back home. Climate action tomorrow is easy to promise. It’s far harder to make those legendary “tough choices” today when they hit British voters’ pockets.

As a consequence of dithering, our energy policy is also in a mess. The latest National Audit Office report suggests that new Labour has done nothing to curb CO2 emmissions in the past 10 years. Britain ranks second from bottom of west European countries for supplying renewable energy.

When last summer’s floods (unlinked to climate change) almost swamped electricity substations there was a danger of black-outs across parts of the country. You don’t need to be a paid-up green to worry that we are increasingly vulnerable to Russian and Middle Eastern despots for our oil and gas.

Much of Blair’s domestic agenda was either dictated or vetoed by his chancellor, so the failure to secure our energy supplies does not entirely rest with TB. “The UK would lead the international response to tackle climate change,” promised Chancellor Brown when the Stern report was published two years ago. Now he is ensconced at No 10, environmental policy owes more to St Augustine than Sir Nicholas - he wants the Lord to save him from global warming - but not yet.

Under Blair the energy and environment cabinet committee was chaired by the prime minister. But Prime Minister Brown has other priorities. Last week, what was publicised in advance as “the greenest budget in history” turned out to be as unexciting as the rest of Alistair Darling’s first outing with Gladstone’s battered briefcase. “Pathetic”, sneered a green Tory. “Mere lip service”, said a Liberal Democrat frontbencher. Ecologists were predictably livid.

Towards the end of his budget speech Darling at last switched from his mantra of “stability” to impassioned words about climate change although, perhaps to preserve energy, he scarcely turned up his volume in the chamber. He described tackling global warming as “our greatest obligation to future generations”, adding: “We need to do more and we need to do it now. There will be catastrophic economic and social consequences if we fail to act.” Then he failed to act.

Darling did announce targets to make all new nondomestic buildings zero-carbon . . . by 2019. Householders were offered a paltry £26m package for the green homes service to help to reduce fuel bills and carbon emissions. That works out at £1 a home. A Lib Dem expert pronounces: “We still have millions of households which don’t have the minimal level of loft insulation, which would pay for itself with energy savings within a year.”

Taxes on family-size cars with big engines will go up . . . but from 2010. And a 2p rise on fuel duty was postponed until October. Perhaps that was for the best with petrol prices already hitting £1.06p per litre at the pumps. Brown remembers vividly that it was a rise in the fuel escalator that produced the worst moment of new Labour’s first term when the road hauliers blockaded fuel supplies.

He earned his nickname of McCavity for disappearing from our screens during that crisis and abandoned all attempts to keep increasing the fuel levy above the level of inflation. Environmental taxes have actually fallen as a percentage of tax receipts under Labour. Such is public cynicism, that after suffering a multitude of sneaky stealth taxes, the public now believes any green taxes are just an excuse to raise more money.

There will be a price to pay for this caution. Labour is supposed to be the progressive party. So what can the government offer to progressive voters as an inducement to vote for it? In the party’s heartlands, green issues may not loom large. Yet in the marginal southern and metropolitan seats there are a hell of a lot of muesli-munching, small ‘l’ liberal voters going spare.

It is no accident that all three main London mayoral candidates, including Ken Livingstone, the official Labour candidate, oppose the government on building a third runway at Heathrow. The government’s deathly embrace of BAA has won it no radical friends.

For the opposition, Steve Hilton, David Cameron’s chief strategist, long ago converted him to environmental-ism and a large part of the young leader’s instant new appeal was based upon it. It was suddenly hip to be a green Tory. Some unconvincing stunts and a flirtation with taxing airline travel created a backlash, but the polls still identify green issues as a plus for the Conservatives. Over at the Liberal Democrats, Chris Huhne’s attractive Scandinavian model of balancing all new green taxes with simultaneous tax cuts is his party’s strongest suit.

The world is moving on. A new administration in Washington, red or blue, will be greener. Both Democratic hopefuls are signed up to more radical schemes than those proposed by the European Union. John McCain, the Republican candidate, has co-sponsored a bill to limit greenhouse emissions at federal level.

Today’s 16-point opinion poll lead for the Tories argues for Labour boldness. Alan Milburn, the former Labour health secretary, emphasises the importance of green issues in his appeal to Brown to show “the vision thing” (see page 19). Another big beast, Charles Clarke, says Brown’s response to green issues is “embarrassing”.

The dilemmas and trade-offs of environmental policy are, admittedly, highly complex. The political pitfalls of changing our tax system are obvious. But as the man who commissioned the Stern report, Brown gained great credit. By ducking on delivering, he hands the green card to his enemies.

Gordon may think that saving Labour comes before saving the planet but the two goals aren’t exclusive.

Times Recommends

• In the real world, the public sector must pay
• Playing politics in a land of double Dutch
• Be like the plinth people: not set in stone