Tony Blair on the way forward

In a major interview Prime minister Tony Blair has revealed his government's plans for dealing with global warming during his final time in office.

On the point of aviation taxes, widely seen by environment organisations as a financial tool that would help curb one of the fastest growing sources of carbon dioxide, Mr. Blair rejected such a measure. The PM insisted that a much more efficient way would be for aviation to be included in European carbon trading scheme, a move that was previously rejected during the early Kyoto negotiations in the late 90'ties.

On energy security and mix of renewable energy, Mr. Blair made two points. Firstly, that Britain's future policy on reducing CO2 emissions and stability of energy supply had to include nuclear. While it would take time to develop the next generation of reactors, it would mean clean, low carbon energy for the UK for many generations to come. Secondly, that modern nuclear reactors produce about 1/10 of waste produced by the current generation of reactors.
A statement clearly defined to brush aside the main objection to nuclear by many UK green organisations such as WWF and Friends of the earth.

Mr. Blair also confirmed that the UK would seek agreement from the other EU members states to make future EU coal-fired power stations carbon neutral by investing in improved technology that would capture the CO2 before it entered the atmosphere and store it underground.

The Prime Minister suggested that the next G8 meeting could be used to achieve agreement between the G8 members and the five major developing nations, led by China, which is expected to overtake the USA as the world's biggest emitter by 2010, on a global target for the maximum level of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere.

Mr. Blair believe that setting a global target, above which the level of CO2 is not allowed to grow, will provide an opportunity to implement an agreement that could replace Kyoto after 2012. The proposal has German backing and a likely target is expected to be between 500-550 parts per million (PPM). Currently the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is 382 PPM.

The Prime Minister finished by praising his Government for the work it has done on global warming and promised to continue the fight whilst in office and possible beyond.