Blair @ CGI

"I think that – three points I would like to make here. The first is that I think, whether for reasons to do with concern over global warming or for reasons to do with concern over energy security and supplies, I think this issue is coming together in an important way. It’s there now on the agenda and I’m pleased about that. I think it’s very important.

The second thing, though, is that I think – and I would say probably I’m changing my thinking about this in the past two or three years. I think if we are going to get action on this, we have got to start from the brutal honesty about the politics of how we deal with it. The truth is no country is going to cut its growth or consumption substantially in the light of a long-term environmental problem. What countries are prepared to do is to try to work together cooperatively to deal with this problem in a way that allows us to develop the science and technology in a beneficial way. Now, I don’t think all of the answers lie in just – in developing the science and technology, but I do think there is no way we are going to tackle this problem unless we develop the science and technology capable of doing it.

And that really brings me to the third point, which is I think the point that you were really raising, which is, well, how do you create the forces that drive people then to develop the science and technology?... "

(entire text of conference found Here)

Blair is admitting that severely cutting CO2 emissions hampers economic growth. This< I contend, is one of the reasons for Europe's lagging economy. Here is the most recent data I could find on their economy as a whole. Compair those stats to ours.

OK. So all you who derided Bush because he didn't sign on to the Kyoto Protocol for these reasons, will you now admit he was right after all on at least this point. Here is some info on the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which includes the US, China, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia. Expect more nations to sign on. Also expect no credit being given to Bush for recognizing the fatal flaws in the Kyoto Protocol, which was in essence nothing more than a national money and enegry drain for almost any country that signed on... except Russia. Did anyone besides TSC notice the potential financial bennefits outwieghted Russia's scientific rejection of the thing???