Higher energy prices are a “legitimate” way to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Gordon Brown’s chief adviser on climate change said on Friday, even as the government faces mounting pressure from MPs to ease fuel taxes.

Adair Turner, the chairman of the government’s climate change committee and new head of the Financial Services Authority, told the Financial Times that, as a matter of principle, “everyone accepts that putting a price on carbon is a crucial instrument” to cut emissions. “That will put up the price of energy and there is no way round that. We should not deny that is what these policies do,” he said.