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WHAT DOES OUR PRIME MINISTER SAY?

"There won't be any more Kyoto Treaties"

Tony Blair at the Clinton Global Initiative - 15 September 2005 Plenary Session, page 13 of 19

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WLFOE comment: One of the most powerful and relevant statements ever made about the environment is as follows: "There are no technological fixes to our environmental problems; only social, political and economic ones." See speech below where Tony Blair puts his faith in technological fixes (and big business). It shows that he has, to all intents and purposes, given up on the social, political and economic actions which are needed. This illustrates as clearly as anything yet how Tony Blair and New Labour have lost interest in addressing environmental issues.

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MR. BLAIR: I think that - three points I would like to make here. The first is that I think, whether for reasons to do with concern over global warming or for reasons to do with concern over energy security and supplies, I think this issue is coming together in an important way. It's there now on the agenda and I'm pleased about that. I think it's very important.

The second thing, though, is that I think - and I would say probably I'm changing my thinking about this in the past two or three years. I think if we are going to get action on this, we have got to start from the brutal honesty about the politics of how we deal with it.

The truth is no country is going to cut its growth or consumption substantially in the light of a long-term environmental problem. What countries are prepared to do is to try to work together cooperatively to deal with this problem in a way that allows us to develop the science and technology in a beneficial way.

Now, I don't think all of the answers lie in just - in developing the science and technology, but I do think there is no way we are going to tackle this problem unless we develop the science and technology capable of doing it.

And that really brings me to the third point, which is I think the point that you were really raising, which is, well, how do you create the forces that drive people then to develop the science and technology?

How do you create the markets and the research and the development of this technology so that we can shorten the timeline so that we're not waiting 25 or 30 years to develop fuel cell technology, so that, for example, in nuclear fusion, which is now a major issue as well we are developing the technology, so that you can bring those costs of wind power and solar power down?

How do you do that? And I think that is the issue that the international community needs to address because we tried at Gleneagles to try and - some people have signed Kyoto, some people haven't signed Kyoto, right. That is a disagreement. It's there. It's not going to be resolved.

But how do we move forward and ensure that post-Kyoto we do try to get agreement? I think that can only be done by the major players in this coming together and finding a way for pulling their resources, their information, their science and technology in order to find the ways of allowing us to grow sustainably?

And the meeting that will take place on the 1st of November, which is effectively the G-8 of the India, China, Brazil, South Africa, and Mexico.

That is going to allow us, I hope, not to negotiate international treaties, but to allow us to start beginning the necessary dialogue as to how we are going to shorten these timelines for developing the science and technology and how we are going to ensure that countries like China and India, as they grow - and they will grow.

And they are not going to - they are not going to find it satisfactory for us in the developed world to turn around and say, look, we have had our growth. You have now got yours so we want you to do it sustainably even if we haven't. So they aren't going to demand, in my view, some process that allows us to share the technology and transfer so that we can benefit collectively for the work that needs to be done.

And the real issue I think - because to be honest, I don't think people are going, at least in the short term, going to start negotiating another major treaty like Kyoto. The real issue is how do we put these incentives in the system so that the private sector, as well as the public sector says, this is the direction policy is going to go, so let's start getting behind this. So that is what - I think it's a key issue.

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A complete cop-out! This is what the Climate Coalition thinks: "He [Tony Blair] now appears to be no longer backing mandatory emissions cuts but is moving towards the Bush position which just encourages voluntary 'incentives". This is a recipe for no effective action at all and global suicide. Blair is now in the process of betraying all those who are working to save our planet from ecological catastrophe, and more importantly all those who will come after us on this planet."

Strong words indeed, but they seems justified.

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Here are extracts from some letters to the press:

The recent global study by scientists at Georgia Institute of Technology, and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, showing the increasing intensity of hurricanes over the last 35 years, adds further proof that we are currently witnessing the worsening effects of human-engineered climate change.

What may help explain why certain western governments can be so unembarrassed in denying climate change is occurring, is that the increase in the number and proportion of storms reaching the highest levels (four and five) is shown to be felt mostly in the North Pacific, Indian, and Southwest Pacific Oceans.

We can only shake our heads empathetically at this catalogue of catastrophes for so long. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita should be convincing enough proof that what the green movement has long warned would happen is becoming a reality, and that suffering at the hands of global warming is not restricted to anonymous indigents in far-off lands.

Action is needed now. The government's own chief scientific advisor, Sir David King, has said that climate change is a far greater global threat than terrorism, and yet Gordon Brown responds to a fuel fiasco by asking OPEC to produce 50,000 more barrels per day. 99% of climatologists agree that we are bringing about climate change, yet the US refuses to ratify Kyoto and issues tax-breaks for the most inefficient cars available.

Britain's ostrich-like attitude to the effects of global warming must change. One of Tony Blair's faces spouts placating, green rhetoric while the other sanctions airport extensions and blocks EU emission-cutting targets. I hope we do not have to wait until we are on the wrong side of a catastrophe before Britain takes climate change seriously and elects a government that does too.

We need a mass social and political environmental movement to change our society, so that we live in harmony with the planet, but also makes reparations for the damage that we have already done.

Sep 2005

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