Risk to environment poses same dangers as terror, warns Blair Paul Brown, environment correspondent Tuesday February 25, 2003 The Guardian The destruction of the environment and global warming are as great a threat to world peace as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, the prime minister said yesterday. In a speech which linked terrorism to global inequalities, Tony Blair took a sideswipe at his ally George Bush for tackling one and not the other. "There can be no lasting peace while there is appalling injustice and poverty," he said. "Look around the world today, and it has to be said the quality of leadership on sustainable development elsewhere falls a little short of inspirational, especially in some of the world's most powerful nations. "We can't allow ourselves to be thwarted by this sort of blind, business-as-usual bigotry." There was a danger of polarity between two worlds, he told an audience of environmental pressure groups and quangos in London. Global poverty, deteriorating relations between the Muslim world and the west, plus environmental degradation, were as devastating in their potential impact as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction - some more so, he said. The issues divided left from right, north from south, the US and its allies from the rest. The only answer was to accept that these issues had to be considered alongside the issues of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction if the world's security and prosperity were to be guaranteed. There will be no genuine security if the planet is ravaged by climate change, Mr Blair said, announcing an initiative to cut the UK's greenhouse house gas emissions by 60% by 2050. Mr Blair also wrote to the Greek prime minister, Costas Simitis, in his capacity as president of the European council to get a 60% target adopted for Europe. Under the Kyoto agreement, EU members are committed to an 8% reduction by 2010, but the Blair plan is to get the whole of Europe, including the new accession states, agreeing to a 60% cut by 2050. The speech was billed as the Blair vision for a sustainable world, in which he took in the need for equality in world trade, eradication of poverty and debt, and preventing environmental degradation. It was made on the same day that the government launched its long awaited energy white paper, and published its annual statistics on quality of life in Britain. Mr Blair announced an extra £70m for Carbon Trust, a body he set up two years ago to promote new technologies such as fuel cells, wave power, solar power and combined heat and power plants. The government aimed to increase the existing target of 10% renewables by 2010 to 20% by 2020. Nuclear power was given the cold shoulder, the industry left to run down as the old stations reached the end of their lives. Jonathon Porritt, the chairman of the government's sustainable development commission, told the prime minister that his words were laudable. However, the gap between what was needed to promote sustainable development and what was happening was still growing. Mr Blair conceded that Britain was "not meeting the scale of the challenge". "We have not been bold enough... real investment now to tackle the causes of poverty and degradation could be such a strong signal of our determination to pursue justice in an evenhanded way. "We need to combine greater economic development with better environmental impact, bringing the environment, economic development and social justice together. "I believe our approach offers the best hope for ... building a more prosperous, just, and stable world. That is the real task of statesmanship today. And the time-scale is urgent," he said. The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and Clarifications column, Wednesday February 26 2003 Two paragraphs were wrongly attributed to Tony Blair in this report. The passage, beginning "Look around the world today ..." and ending "blind, business-as-usual bigotry", was, in fact quoting the comments of Jonathon Porritt, the chairman of the government's sustainable development commission. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,9061,902505,00.html [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
