British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday that climate change was the greatest long-term problem facing the world today and that the United States should be encouraged to ratify the Kyoto Protocol."The Kyoto agreement... amounts to effectively a one-percent reduction in emissions, whereas the evidence we have is that we require a 60-percent reduction in emissions by 2050," Blair said.
"The single biggest long-term problem we face is the issue of climate change," he said.
The Kyoto Protocol requires wealthy industrialised countries to make an overall cut of 5.2 percent in emissions of carbon dioxide gases by 2012.
Blair, who was speaking in the House of Commons, Britain's lower legislative chamber, admitted he did not share the United States view on Kyoto. Washington has so far refused to ratify the treaty.
But he said it would be wrong to give up trying to convince Washington to change its mind, underlining that it was not only US President George W. Bush that was opposed to ratifying the treaty, but the US Congress as well.
"I don't think we should give up on dialogue with the US," Blair said.
All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.
Quick Links
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express
Nov 02, 2006
Discovery Rolls Toward LaunchA Mission To Mars Part TwoChinese Lunar Orbiter Prototype On Display At Air ShowShuttle Astronauts to Install Ball Aerospace Instruments Aboard Hubble Space TelescopeMikulski Applauds Hubble Announcement, Says Decision Is Right For AmericaTo The Dawn Of SpaceLost In Space No MoreOxygen Regeneration Restored At ISSISRO Moots Manned Mission To SpaceIndigenous Cryogenic Stage Successfully TestedLAUNCH Becomes First Magazine For Hobby Rocketry And Commercial Space Travel EnthusiastsNASA Gives Hubble Telescope A New Lease On LifeShape Of Things To Come-On The MoonIran To Step-Up Sensitive Nuclear ActivitiesNorth Korea To Rejoin Talks On Nuclear ProgramChina The Anti-Superpower Or The Second HyperpowerBush Says China Saving Too Much MoneyExplosion Blows Out Window At Paypal In Silicon ValleyArctic Snap Wreaks Havoc Across Nordic RegionGlobal Map Shows New Patterns Of Extinction RiskMicrobes Compete With Animals For Food By Making It StinkMore Species In The Tropics Because Life Has Been There LongerScientists Setting Dollar Value For EcosystemCzech Temelin Nuclear Reactor Hit By Fuel ProblemMost Lakes Across China Polluted Or Emptied Out By HumansUK To Push India And EU Over Climate Change ResponseWhite House Dismisses Chart Of Iraq Sliding Toward ChaosIraq Not Lost YetRed Cross Unveils Mass Southern Africa AIDS ProjectChina's Dirty Secret
