Advertisement

PM Brown at JFK Library

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is calling for a renewed commitment to international cooperation in a speech at the Kennedy Library. This after he suggested expanding the United Nations Security Council and redefining the World Bank's mission.

Brown called for the world's emerging economic powers to play a bigger role in making decisions.

"And I also sense that this is the moment to bring in China, India, South Africa, Brazil, the other emerging countries, to the heart of this debate about a global society, offering them a greater role within the G8, to offer them more say in the IMF and World Bank, to reform the Security Council of the United Nations."

Currently, only the five major military powers have a veto on the Security Council, and the G8 includes only Canada, the United States, the major European powers, and Japan. And although the World Bank has long provided loans for clean water, air pollution controls, and the development of energy infrastructure, Brown called for a greater focus on unconventional sources of energy, in the hopes that the Bank can play a greater role in slowing down climate change.

"I've a radical proposal to make that the World Bank becomes a bank for development and the environment, and is able to transfer billions in loans and grants to encourage the poorest countries to do what they could never do otherwise, and will need help to be able to do, and that is to adopt alternative sources of energy, and in doing so we can insure that its development programs provide an integrated approach to both poverty eradication and global warming."

Brown also praised President Bush for "leading the world" in rooting out terrorism. When Brown took over the office of Prime Minister from Tony Blair, there were expectations that he would withdraw British troops from Iraq, which President Bush says is at the center of his global war on terror. So far, British troops remain in Iraq.

This program aired on April 18, 2008. The audio for this program is not available.

Advertisement

More from WBUR

Listen Live
Close