Blair Seeks To Secure Bush Backing For New Climate Treaty: Times

Space Daily ^ | December 9, 2004 | AFP

[cogitator]

Blair Seeks To Secure Bush Backing For New Climate Treaty: Times

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is seeking to secure US President George W. Bushs backing for a new international treaty that would end US isolation in the fight against global warming, a newspaper said Thursday.

The prime minister's office confirmed that Blair had held "lengthy discussions" with Bush about a fresh initiative that would bypass Washingtons opposition to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, The Times said.

One source described the deal as "Kyoto-lite," it said.

[My comment: the current Kyoto Protocol is really "Kyoto-lite". This would be Kyoto-ultralite.]

The deal would involve scientific agreement on the scale and nature of the threat, as well as an international program to develop the technology needed for renewable energy and the reduction of carbon emissions, it said.

Although the White House still appears deeply skeptical about the initiative, a source at the prime minister's office said: "There is an awful lot of work going on in the background on this, it is being given the highest priority."

The Times said Blair had talks at his office Tuesday last week with US Senator John McCain over how to broker an agreement.

Stephen Byers, the former cabinet minister and a close ally of Blair, has made several trips to the United States for discussions with other leading Republicans such as Senator Olympia Snowe, his co-chairman on the International Taskforce on Climate Change.

Byers said: "We are not in the business of giving George Bush a fig leaf on this issue. We want action from the US that makes a real difference."

In Buenos Aires, a US official said Tuesday that Washington would not change its approach to climate change, charging that the Kyoto Protocol was not underpinned by scientific fact, but based on politics.

But French Ecology Minister Serge Lepeltier said in Paris earlier this week the United States will sooner or later rejoin the Kyoto Protocol, even though the Bush administration still shuns the United Nations' global warming pact.

Blair said Wednesday that Britain looked likely to miss its own ambitious target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2010.

Under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, Britain must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, by 12.5 percent compared with 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

However, Blair remained determined that Britain will make fighting climate change a priority when he assumes the chairmanship of the G8 group of leading industrial countries.

[cogitator]

Blair is more likely to be Bush-whacked than Bush-backed on this issue.

(And how ironic is it to have someone named Snowe on a climate change task-force?)

[GianniV]

If Bush signs any type of climate treaty, he is going to anger a lot of his supporters, including me. Global Warming or Climate Change or whatever the hell you want to call it is complete BS.

And I live in Chicago. I support Global Warming - it's too damn cold here too much of the year.

[bahblahbah]

I'm all for technology initiatives that would reduce greenhouse gases and reduce our need for islamofascist oil, but we should not concede that global warming is really the result of humans.

[RayChuang88]

Actually, we may get some of the true international treaty on reducing CO2 output thanks to this new factor: the removal of sulfur compounds from motor fuels.

With no sulfur compounds turning into something akin to sulfuric acid to damage engine parts, this makes it possible to apply the very latest in engine technology to reduce fuel consumption of gasoline engines by as much as 15% and switch vehicles en masse to clean-burning diesel engines with 35-45% lower fuel consumption than gasoline engines!

Here's what I mean:

In the case of gasoline engines, removal of sulfur compounds means we can apply direct fuel injection, stratified combustion and new ceramic-based catalytic converters that will cut fuel consumption 15-20% compared to today's gasoline engines and still meet the strict Super Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle (SULEV) emission requirments.

In the case of diesel engines, removal of sulfur compounds means we can apply common-rail pressurized direct fuel injection and new catalytic converters that not only reduce exhaust emissions but also "burn off" diesel exhaust particulates at the same time. This means we can switch minivans, light trucks and SUV's to clean-burning turbodiesel power, which means 35-45% lower fuel consumption and still meet Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle (ULEV) emission requirements.

In short, we don't need to completely redesign our vehicles, and we cut fuel consumption quite a bit.

[Camachee]

The deal would involve scientific agreement on the scale and nature of the threat

You mean that they are gonna agree that the sun makes things hot?

[cogitator]

You mean that they are gonna agree that the sun makes things hot?

I think that would definitely be a good starting point.

[Cicero]

What you describe is the kind of thing that should be done: practical measures that work and are economically feasible.

Tony Blair is motivated purely by politics. He wants to push some proposal that sounds good. I trust Bush will resist. Environmentalists will give him no credit no matter what he does; his base will be annoyed; and money will be wasted that could be better spent on sensible energy measures.

[RayChuang88]

What you describe is the kind of thing that should be done: practical measures that work and are economically feasible.

Yep. If I were an investor in Cummins I would cheer loudly because with clean-burning turbodiesels a company that specializes in diesel engines like Cummins would make money hand over fist.