Low carbon market to grow by a third

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - The global market for low carbon goods and services could grow by a third in six years and may expand even faster if a climate change deal is reached in Copenhagen later this year, the UK government said on Wednesday.

The sector could expand to 4.3 trillion pounds by 2015 from 3 trillion pounds in 2007/08, boosted by countries looking for ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to a government policy paper.

The government will say at 1 p.m. British time how it plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change, after the G8 summit in Italy set a goal of cutting emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

That target was undermined within hours when Russia said it could not meet it and Canada called it "aspirational." A second drive to persuade China and India to cut emissions by 50 percent by 2050 also failed.

With Britain in its worst recession in 50 years and an election less than a year away, the Labour government has been keen to talk up the benefits of the growing environmental sector.

"There is no high carbon future," Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said in a statement. "But if the transition to low carbon is inevitable, what is not inevitable is that we use the transition as a chance to develop new jobs, new industries here in Britain."

The country's low carbon sector will be one of the few areas of the economy that will grow during the recession and beyond, the government policy document said. It should see growth of more than 4 percent each year up to 2014/15.

The number of people employed in the sector could rise to more than 1 million by 2015, compared to 880,000 today.