A FORMER government minister has warned of the 'devastating' environmental consequences of Britain leaving the European Union during a visit to Stroud.

Meeting Ecotricity founder Dale Vince, Baroness Lynne Featherstone urged Remain supporters to emphasise the importance of climate change and the renewables industry.

Baroness Featherstone, who is the Liberal Democrat energy spokesman, said that green industries would be hit if Britons voted to leave Europe in the referendum on June 23.

"This is about saving us from climate change which would devastate all of our lives," said Baroness Featherstone during the visit to Ecotricity, one of the UK's leading green energy companies, on Monday.

"The economy is the leading issue in this debate but green industries are our economy and are our future.

"I don't feel this is something the Remain side and the prime minister have emphasised enough.

"This is the way forward for the country but the environment does not stop at our borders."

Baroness Featherstone, a former home office minister with responsibility for international development, warned that leaving the EU would worsen the migrant crisis.

She said: "Quite frankly if people don't like looking at the migrants who are literally on the borders, if they think that is bad then the waves of misery of migration that will come from climate change will put this as nothing."

She also emphasised the importance of staying in the EU for Britain to meet its climate change target by 2030.

Speaking to the SNJ, Ecotricity boss Dale Vince said: "I get all of the economic arguments and the importance of the EU for workers' rights but for me alongside all of that it is about the environment.

"The EU sets ambitious targets for the environment, for renewable energy and climate change policies.

"It is the EU that cleaned up our beaches in the 1970s, for example.

"One of the great things that Europe brings is environment protection which is above and beyond anything any government in this country has ever done."