Tony Blair's environment adviser has claimed that modernising the public sector will best be achieved by tackling climate change.

The Sustainable Development Commission said on Tuesday the government must give as much time and resources to reducing global warming as it does to improving public services.

Chairman Sir Jonathon Porritt also warned the prime minister against marginalising environmental issues in the general election.

A new report from the SDC found that a greener Britain would also improve the public finances and release more funds for schools and hospitals.

Tapping into the prime minister's thirst for "modernisation", the report sought to persuade him of the case for putting sustainable development at the heart of the Labour Party's agenda.

The Commission concluded: "Modernisation without sustainable development is a recipe for short term gains but long term waste, frustration and contradiction.

"Sustainable development without the leverage and resources of the modernisation agenda will remain marginal in most public services.

"Neither programme is achieving its full potential and we contend that neither can do so unless and until it is integrated with the other."

Blair has promised to make climate change one of two key priorities for Britain's chairmanship of the G8 group of the world's richest nations this year and will host a conference of leading experts on the subject next month.

But critics have accused him of failing to give the issue the prominence it deserves in his politics and of lacking radical solutions to the problem.

Porritt said the prime minister's concern is genuine but that he will not be able to translate that into practice until he has persuaded the voters of the need for action.

"Blair really does care about both Africa and the climate change and broader environmental issues," he said.

"The real problem has been that he won't convert that big picture of concern for the global politics of it back into the domestic scene here in the UK."