Tony Blair On The Green Road To Nowhere - Guardian

[hatrack]

Prime ministers make environment speeches about every two years. Invariably they make platitudinous statements about how important nature is for today's quality of life and tomorrow's generations. On Tuesday Tony Blair took the now orthodox line - just as he did in 2000 and 2002 - that climate change is happening as a result of human behaviour, and that disaster looms if nothing is done to avert it. This green speech was the most anxious of the three Mr Blair has made in office, mixing evidence of the growing number of extreme climatic events with estimates of the escalating costs of dealing with more frequent and intense heat waves, floods and storms. The overriding positive, he said, was that "with the political and collective will", climate change could be addressed.

But for all the green rhetoric, there's little evidence yet that this government - or any other - has the political will to address what is now accepted as a potentially overwhelming global problem.

Britain sees itself as the world leader in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and aims, ambitiously, to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60% from their 1990 levels by 2050. But the government glosses over the fact that we are on track to miss by a mile our commitment to reduce emissions by 20% by 2010.

EDIT

This is optimistic, if much needed. Far from being the environmental paragon it likes to suggest it is, Europe is on course to fail to meet even its low Kyoto target of 5.2% cuts in emissions on 1990 figures by 2012. According to the European Environment Agency, overall emissions are only 2.1% lower than in 1990. Only France, Germany, Sweden and the UK are likely to meet their targets and Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, Italy, Denmark and Greece are all expected to overshoot - some substantially. Most OECD countries have the same problems as Britain: carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles in Europe will rise by 30% by 2010, says the agency. Mr Blair, who is pinning his hopes on the emergence of an international trading market in emissions and better technology, will have an even more uphill struggle to persuade countries outside Europe to cut emissions. George Bush reportedly now accepts the evidence that climate change is happening, but his administration is implacably opposed to the Kyoto process which involves only rich countries cutting back emissions. Meanwhile, John Kerry is coy about committing the US to cuts."

EDIT

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/comment/0,9236,1306510,00.html