Going beyond Bush

[paineinthearse]

Going beyond Bush

In hosting G8, the UK has its chance to affect climate change but should forget about influencing the US, argues Tom Burke

Wednesday January 26, 2005

Guardian

This week, Tony Blair has begun climbing the Everest of expectations he has built for himself on climate change. Yesterday, the prime minister breakfasted with Britain's leading environmentalists. Today, when he speaks to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he will again stress the urgency of the issue. Tomorrow, he will meet privately with business leaders to seek their support for faster action on the climate. Next week, there will be a major conference on the science of climate change in Exeter. Then, just before Easter, there will be an unusual ministerial roundtable of energy and environment ministers, which the chancellor, Gordon Brown, will open. No one should doubt the prime minister's personal commitment to this issue. But, on this as on so many other issues, the real question is whether his good intentions will be translated into a practical political strategy.

Blair is not starting from a high point. His decision to seek an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide Britain would be allowed to emit under European legislation caused outrage. Why he sacrificed so much credibility for a 3% increase in emissions is difficult to imagine. It could hardly have been the difference between life or death for British industry. And if it was, how will we achieve the even more ambitious future emission reductions he has already said are necessary? This mistake was compounded last week by the bizarre public threat to sue the European Commission if Britain did not get its way. Then there was the baffling refusal to allow the commission to set Europe a 60% aspirational target of the kind the prime minister has himself set for Britain. This series of errors means he begins his climb from well below base camp.

Bringing the US closer to the rest of the world on climate change is a key goal of Blair's G8 strategy - the west face of his Everest. This confused start will comfort the White House, confirming the impression left by his visit to Washington after the re-election of President George Bush that, personally important though this issue is to Blair, he will not spend much political capital on it. The prime minister is firmly convinced that he can persuade Bush to do more about climate change. He may be right; he can be persuasive. The problem is that as he leaves by one door, the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, will enter by another. He, too, can be persuasive.
Bush has already made it clear that he will use his renewed political capital aggressively. What this means for climate change was apparent at the latest round of climate negotiations in Buenos Aires, when the Americans were obstructive and blocked any discussion of what should happen now that the Kyoto Protocol will go ahead.

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This will not be an easy task. But it is likely to be more productive than trying to persuade the US to do more. And, if nothing else, it will lessen the chance that the only thing anyone will remember of the Blair year of the climate, with all its high expectations, is that President Bush turned him down again.

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