A low-carbon message taken to U.S. lawmakers this week by U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown was Britain's strategy for survival, judging by remarks made on Friday to a Low Carbon Industrial Summit in London by Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform Minister Peter Mandelson.

“Thank you, Prime Minister, for taking our climate change message to Washington so effectively this week,” Madelson was quoted as saying.

He hinted that words spoken to a climate symposium in Washington earlier in the week were about Britain's “transformational shift” and the “huge opportunities in low carbon” for the economy and job creation. He pointed to supply chain opportunities in “low-carbon” goods.

Eerily echoing Winston Churchill as a coal-fired Royal Navay switched to oil, Mandelson spoke of Britain on “the edge of a low-carbon industrial revolution”. “Everything is going to change,” he said, adding, “How you manufacture and the services you provide.”

The Enterprise secretary spoke of new skills that would “save money” for all, since “There is no high-carbon future.”

He said emissions and renewables targets already set by the government would guarantee the end of today’s use of oil, gas and coal. Low carbon is now at the heart of U.K. “manufacturing strategy” aimed at the “huge economic opportunity” in savings via energy efficiency.

The “low-carbon industry” — wind turbines, carbon-scrubbing tech, insulation etc. — is, Mandelseon said, a £3 trillion industry “set to double in size”.