Blair: US must return to Kyoto dialogue
Tony Blair said today that he was determined to pull the United States “back into dialogue” over the need to tackle climate change.
As the Kyoto Protocol on global warming came into effect, the British Prime Minister reaffirmed his commitment to making the issue a key priority for Britain’s presidency of the G8 group of industrialised nations.
He also emphasised the importance of bringing in China and India which, like the US, are not signed up to the treaty.
I think the science is very clear and if that science is right then – not immediately, but growing over a period of time, and certainly in 30, 40 years, well within the lifetime of my kids – this is going to be a major, major issue.
“It is going to cause difficulty if not catastrophe,” he said in an interview on Channel Five’s The Wright Stuff.
“What I am trying to do later this year is to make sure we pull America back into a dialogue and put China and India alongside that and if we manage that I think we will get back on the right track.”
Mr Blair again sought to reassure Washington, which remains deeply sceptical on the issue, that reducing greenhouse gas emissions did not mean cuts to living standards and economic growth.
“There are science technology ways through this now,” he said.
“If we made the investment in the science and technology now we could probably find that we could carry on consuming and our living standards growing without doing real damage to the environment.”
But it was important to start taking action now.
“If we don’t do it now, how are we going to be able to say to China and India when they really start – because they will be the big economic players in 30, 40 years’ time – you have got to consume less because what we have done in the past.”
