Latest Nail in Kyoto Treaty's Coffin: Tony Blair Admits It Cannot Succeed
One of the favorite things for Bush/America-haters to say hereabouts is that Bush/America is evil, wicked, selfish, and destructive because he won't commit to the Kyoto Protocol, that Holy Grail of environmentalists the world over. Here is the text of it.
But Kyoto is deeply flawed (for instance, neither India or China, both of whom are experiencing massive growth, are covered by the treaty framework). Usually I don't burden you with the endless global squabbling over this, gentle reader, because there are far better things to blog about . . . like space noodles. Still, here is some definitely bloggable news that UK prime minister Tony Blair, seen as a strong supporter of the treaty, has stated that Kyoto is doomed to failure:
Mr Blair, who has been seen up to now as a strong supporter of the Kyoto Treaty, effectively tore the document up and admitted that rows [that's British for "arguments" -- MM] over its implementation will "never be resolved." Mr Blair told the New York conference: "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 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. "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." ... Mr Blair admitted that there would probably never be a successor treaty to Kyoto, which expires in 2012, and said the "answer" was merely to try to introduce "incentives" for business and large-scale energy users to make cut-backs. |
The activists will be frothing mad, of course. In the media, the Guardian's predictably spouting off. But really, about Kyoto: offering incentives and pursuing better technology are probably more effective courses of action than compelling cutbacks and restrictions -- human nature being what it is.
More from TechCentralStation and also from this New Zealand report that Kiwi manufacturers want their government to reconsider the treaty.