Blair Drops Kyoto?

British Prime Minister Tony Blair appears to be stepping away from Kyoto Protocol style limits on greenhouse gas emissions as the way to address global warming concerns. According to the Environmental News Service, Blair told participants in a climate meeting in London yesterday that:

"People fear some external force is going to impose some internal target on you which is going to restrict your economic growth," said Blair, referring to the Kyoto Protocol, under which industrialized countries must reduced greenhouse gases an average of 5.2 percent by 2012 compared to 1990 levels. "The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge," Blair said. "But all economies know that the only sensible, long-term way to develop is to do it on a sustainable basis."

Blair now appears to be favoring a technical fix for the problem. Perhaps he'd be interested in pursuing a new Zero Emissions Technology Treaty? As I said earlier, the Kyoto Protocol is dead; ideological environmentalists just don't know it yet.