Is this why Blair is staying on?

Don’t hold your breath, but the embattled Tony Blair may yet leave office with the world’s plaudits ringing in his ears. And it is looking increasingly as if he is defying the pundits and staying until June – as he announced last week – precisely because by then there may have been a breakthrough on one of his chosen “legacy” causes.

Not Iraq, of course. Nor his increasingly frustrated attempts to revitalise public services. Nor even, sad to say, debt relief and African poverty. But the issue he has described as “long term, the most important we face” – global warming.
The Prime Minister now believes that the first six months of this year could be the “tipping point” in finally getting international agreement to take serious steps to combat the climate change – including, unlikely as it might seem, from President Bush. And, though I have been critical enough of his failure to match his words with deeds in the past – especially in failing to take on his White House war-mate on the issue – I have to admit that, for once, he does seem to be bringing effective pressure to bear.

The first fruits, as The Independent on Sunday predicted four months ago, will start to show in the Toxic Texan’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. But Mr Blair – and a growing band of world leaders – are playing a longer game, to climax at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany’s oldest Baltic Sea resort, in early June.

Angela Merkel – as Chancellor, the summit’s host – is the Prime Minister’s chief ally. Ministers feared, when she came to power 14 months ago, that she would lower Germany’s environmental profile. But her government has been stronger on global warming even than the Red-Green coalition that preceded it. It was predictable enough: as a former environment minister she was one of the architects of the Kyoto Protocol. And, following Mr Blair’s example at Gleneagles two years ago, she has put climate change at the top of the G8 agenda.

The Prime Minister pressed the President on global warming when he visited him in December, and they have had telephone conversations on it since. Mrs Merkel followed up when she visited Washington at the beginning of this month. Both will be rallying support this week at the annual meeting of top politicians and business leaders in Davos.

A story from the Independent through Climate Ark