Green pledge campaign launches

The 10:10 campaign has received a lot of support even before its launch

A new environmental campaign, backed by a variety of businesses and celebrities, is launching on Tuesday.

Organisers of the campaign, 10:10, aim to get people in the UK to reduce their carbon footprint by 10% in 2010.

The campaign was created by Franny Armstrong, director of recent film, the Age of Stupid. Partners include the Guardian newspaper and Comic Relief.

"It's now or never for the climate," they said. "Politicians have so far failed to do what needs to be done."

The campaign comes in the build-up to a meeting of world leaders in Copenhagen in December to work out a successor to the current Kyoto treaty on carbon emissions.

'Achievable'

The aim is for individuals to pledge to cut their CO2 emissions by 10% next year, but the target is more flexible for businesses - they aim to get "as close to the 10% target as possible".

The website has tips on how to cut your carbon footprint, and the campaign is selling a metal band made from scrap metal salvaged from airplanes, much like the wristband that brought much publicity to the Make Poverty History campaign.

"Cutting 10% in one year is a bold target, but for most of us it's an achievable one," 10:10 said.

Businesses who have signed up to the 10:10 campaign include the Tate Modern and Tottenham Hotspur football club, as well as several NHS Trusts and King's College London.

Celebrities such as cook Delia Smith, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, TV presenter Kevin McCloud and actors Samantha Morton, Colin Firth and Pete Postlethwaite, the star of the Age of Stupid, have signed up.

The minister for energy and climate change, Ed Miliband, has also signed up.

Four of the major energy companies, British Gas owner Centrica, E.ON, EDF and Scottish and Southern, have promised to provide customers with more information on how their energy consumption.

"Once we have a sizeable chunk of the UK signed up, then the next step is to challenge the government to follow suit: to commit to reduce the whole country's emissions by 10% in 2010," Ms Armstrong wrote in the Guardian.