Blair falls into line with Bush on global warming: paper
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-09-25 21:11

British Prime Minister has admitted changing his views on combating global warming to echo those of US President George W. Bush and to oppose negotiating international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol, The Independent newspaper reported on Sunday.

"Probably I'm changing my thinking about this (climate change)"and the world's nations would "not negotiate international treaties," Blair was quoted by the paper as saying while he shareda platform with the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, in New York earlier this month.

Blair justified his change of mind by saying that countries would not negotiate environmental treaties which cut their growth or consumption - another of Bush's main contentions, the paper said.

Blair's U-turn on climate change flies in the face of his promises made in the past two years, undermines the agreement he masterminded at this summer's Gleneagles G-8 summit and endangers talks that opened in Ottawa this weekend on a new treaty to combat climate change, the report said.

Over the past two years Blair has consistently claimed global leadership in tackling what he described as "long term, the singlemost important issue we face as a global community," stressing that it "can only properly be addressed through international agreements."

Bush, however, had repeatedly expressed anger at this position.

The dramatic change will inevitably bring accusations that Blair has once again sold out to Bush, just at the time that the US president is coming under unprecedented pressure to change his policy in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Last week the British government's chief scientific advisor, David King, said that global warming might have increased their severity.