UN adviser backs Blair's view on climate change and air travel

Tony Blair's view that climate change cannot be tackled by clamping down on personal air travel has won support from the UN's leading adviser on global poverty.

Jeffrey Sachs, the renowned American economist, told the Guardian: "Finding a way to achieve economic development and environmental sustainability is the biggest challenge we face globally and it doesn't lend itself to a simple answer. The climate change issue will not be changed by cutting air travel."

The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, who has been travelling with Professor Sachs on a visit to a UN "millennium village" in Uganda, endorsed his comments.

Mr Blair came under fire for saying that he would not cut back on his foreign holidays. Downing Street argued that action on climate change could not come at the expense of economic growth, both in the UK and in poorer countries. The tension between the two issues has been illustrated in Uganda, not least in Entebbe, outside Kampala, where Mr Osborne was told how new fish processing plants and increased fishing in Lake Victoria have put the ecology of the lake at risk.

"Extraordinarily poor people don't have the luxury to devote a considerable part of their current income to environmental needs, even if the degradation of the environment can do profound damage to them in the future," Prof Sachs said.

"This is one of the areas where aid is needed to help the poorest people, who depend for their lives on the environment, to manage the environment in a sustainable manner ... there has to be some outside help to break that dilemma."

Mr Osborne said: "It's very important that environmental campaigners understand that you've got to make the argument that the changes we need to make in society can be made at the same time as ensuring economic growth, or else they'll never win their argument."

"When it comes to environmental measures you can do gesture politics, which is about 'we should not take our long haul holidays'. But for British people who are for the first time able to afford a foreign holiday I don't think telling them not to fly is the answer."

The Tories aimed to set out plans this year for "environmental interventions which are effective and work with the grain of economic growth". He added: "One of the reasons I'm here is to learn, I don't pretend to have all the answers."