Another One Bites the Dust

According to the Telegraph (UK):

Tony Blair has admitted that the fight to prevent global warming by ordering countries to cut greenhouse gases will never be won.

The Prime Minister said "no country is going to cut its growth or consumption" despite environmental fears. . .

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. He said: "To be honest, I don't think people are going, at least in the short term, to start negotiating another major treaty like Kyoto."

One of the problems surrounding the Kyoto Treaty was that the harsh carbon emissions targets did not apply to developing countries such as China and India. Mr Blair said in New York: "China and India... will grow. They are not going to find it satisfactory for us in the developed world to turn around and say, 'Look, we have had our growth. You have now got yours so we want you to do it sustainably even if we haven't'."

Politically, neither France nor Germany could confer a comparative advantage in emission reductions on British competitors. Thus, Blair's U-turn should doom Kyoto.

And not a moment too soon.

(via The Royal Flush via Greenie Watch)