US Saws Blair Off At Knees At Montreal Climate Talks - BBC

[hatrack]

The US has dismissed a suggestion from UK Prime Minister Tony Blair that it may be prepared to sign up to binding targets to tackle climate change. Speaking at UN climate talks in Canada, the US chief negotiator said his nation would not enter talks about fixed curbs on emissions of greenhouse gases.

Mr Blair told UK business leaders on Tuesday that he believed all major nations would support new targets. The Kyoto Protocol, the current global climate agreement, will expire in 2012.

"We would certainly not agree to the United States being part of legally binding targets and timetable agreement post-2012," Dr Harlan Watson, the head of the US delegation, told reporters at the climate conference in Montreal. Dr Watson was responding directly to comments made by the UK prime minister at a Confederation of British Industry conference in London.

EDIT

Environmental groups at the UN gathering say Mr Blair is suffering from wishful thinking if he believes there will be any substantial movement from the US from its existing policy. Thousands of participants in Montreal are pondering how to meet the targets in the present Kyoto treaty, and what measures should follow when it expires in 2012.

EDIT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4484388.stm

[Drum]

1. Presumption of Lap-doggery...

"Heh heh...ole Tony won't lemme down...after all, we both use Colgate toothpaste...and I've got that statue of Churchill he lent me, as a kinda hostage...heh heh...If he bent over for that Al Jazeera memo, Ah know he'll cave on this..."