ENVIRONMENT Secretary David Miliband has urged the North-East to do its bit to stop climate change, as he launched a recycling scheme in the region.

The South Shields MP told an audience at Durham University that if everyone living in the city swapped three lightbulbs to an energy- saving type, the impact would be as big as taking 6,000 cars off the road for a year.

Mr Miliband, who has announced he will back chancellor Gordon Brown for the Labour party leadership, was in Durham to launch the university's Green Move Out scheme, which aims to get students to recycle more.

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was given a "recycled" football by geography student Sarah Hall, before speaking to an audience of 250 academics, students and city residents in the university's Great Hall.

He said: "I'm extremely impressed by the level of Durham's engagement with the environmental agenda at all levels.

"It's not that the end of the world is nigh, it's that the decisions we take about mitigating climate change will have an impact on the amount of suffering there is in the world - especially in the poorest countries, who have done the least to cause the problem."

Mr Miliband, who was speaking in Durham as Mr Brown was launching his campaign to become the next Prime Minister, had been tipped as a possible successor to Tony Blair.

However, observers believe he may now continue as Environment Secretary in a Brown-led Government.

He said yesterday: "If we do not, in the course of 2007, introduce a new momentum to the battle against climate change, then we will not succeed in coming to terms with what it means for the way we live."

The Green Move Out initiative urges Durham University students to recycle unwanted items at the end of term, and has been adopted following the success of a similar project at Harvard University, in the US.

With Durham City MP Roberta Blackman-Woods, he also reopened a university think tank during his visit.

The Institute of Advanced Study, in the university's Cosin's Hall, had undergone a refurbishment. It brings together scholars to tackle global problems and questions.