Ed Miliband returned to frontline politics today, urging the government to make Britain the first country in the world to enshrine a net zero carbon emissions target in law.

The former Labour Leader and Energy Secretary made the call in an article in the Guardian ahead of next week’s climate talks in Paris. Leaders from nearly 200 countries will try to agree a deal to cut emissions beyond 2020 and fund developing countries dealing with the effects of global warming.

Miliband concedes that “climate change seems less politically fashionable” in the article but argues that there is now international acceptance that it is a problem requiring a global solution.

“China and the United States have moved forward a long way from where they were at [the 2009 climate talks in] Copenhagen. We have moved from a world where everyone said it was someone else’s problem, to one where everyone knows this can be only be solved collectively.”

“Paris will repeat the international commitment made at Copenhagen to limit warming to 2 degrees. But the bad news is that the pledges will still be short of what is needed. In reality, the commitments for 2030 would take us towards something like a 3-degree world. That would mean higher temperatures than at any time in the last three million years, with potentially dramatic effects of intense heatwaves, flooding and climate refugees across the world.”

So what can be done? Just like at Copenhagen, what matters as much as Paris is what happens afterwards. That is why countries are rightly seeking to build an upwards ratchet mechanism into the agreement. If these pledges are the start, not the final word – a prelude to greater ambition – then we can still avoid the most dangerous effects of global warming.”

“The world will need to move to zero emissions at some time in the second half of the century … The right step now would be for Britain to become the first major country to enshrine net zero emissions in law, with the date determined by advice from the independent Committee on Climate Change.”

Miliband intervention comes after the Guardian and Mail on Sunday reported that he suggested that the Labour Party is now in a worse position than under his leadership to Labour MP Graham Stringer, who was a prominent critic of his.

“I bet you didn’t think things would actually get worse,” he reportedly told him in the Commons smoking room. “But I won’t be appointing you as chairman of the campaign for me to return as leader.”