• Issue 2

Prime Minister Tony Blair has been doing as little as his US counterpart to tackle climate change, a Greenpeace campaigner told the London Project.

Reacting to a global agreement on climate change made by G8 leaders yesterday, the environment body severely condemned the  agreements reached for lacking any concrete targets.`

"They do have no commitment, no targets, no agreement. It's just meaningless," said Willie Mackenzie, Greenpeace oceans campaigner who criticized Tony Blair as well as the US president for pretending to be serious about climate change.

"Again, Tony Blair just said what should be done. He doesn't necessarily deliver anything. His legacy will be judged on not doing enough for climate change. The government is trying to use climate change as an excuse to push an agenda for nuclear power stations, for example. But they don't really tackle it," Mackenzie says.

Greenpeace claims that climate change has been caused mostly by G8 countries. It estimates that 40 per cent of global CO2 emissions were produced by those eight industrialised countries despite the fact that only 13 per cent of the global population live in those countries.

Ahead of the summit, Greenpeace set its own targets to be agreed on by the G8 leaders. The targets for instance urge industrialised countries to cut 30 per cent of their greenhouse emissions by 2020 and 80-90 per cent cuts by 2050 compared with 1990 levels although those targets were not set at the summit.

"George Bush's final gift to Blair falls short of what was needed to protect the climate. An agreement without targets is barely worth the paper it's written on," said John Sauven, Greenpeace UK director.

"Bush says the US will ‘seriously consider' substantial long term cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, but that's like saying aid to Africa is a good thing then refusing to actually commit to donating a single dollar," he added.

image: Capitan Giona