Britain urges Calm as Clear Split Seen on Climate Change Between G8 Leaders

A number of leading environmentalists have urged Prime Minister Tony Blair to consider leaving behind a sceptical United States in plans to unite the world leaders to fight against global warming at the G8 Summit, which commences tomorrow, 6th July.

So far Blair and the British government have stood alongside the Make Poverty History campaign and the Live 8 event to bring aid and debt relief to Africa. Up till now much progress has been made in this area, however, with the issue of climate change the British Premier has hit a brick wall in negotiations.

Tony Blair was sure to make climate change a central issue of Britain’s G8 Presidency and has described it as "probably the most serious threat we face."

He has urged G8 leaders to agree on the immediate need for drastic actions against global warming and climate change in general.

However, the US president George Bush has adamantly rejected the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and has refused to budge at all on the issue. In addition to this, analysts have said that other G8 members such as Canada, Japan and Italy were far from reaching their gas emissions targets under the agreement.

Bush has called for shifting the debate away from limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and asked for a focus to instead move to new technology that would reduce environmental damage without restricting energy use.

Highlighting the differences of opinion across the Atlantic, French President Jacques Chirac said Sunday that climate change is a matter of increasing concern.

"That's why we have indicated clearly to our partners that we could only accept a solution if it took account of a certain number of realities," he said.

Chirac, in direct contrast to President Bush called for a statement to be agreed on the issue to include specific mention of the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol came nto effect in February after Russia agreed to the terms, which obliges participating industrialised nations to reduce their combined greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels by 2012.

However, British officials have not panicked and seem not to see Bush's stand as an obstacle.

"It is extremely well known that the American government has not signed up to Kyoto," Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters on Monday. "That does not, however, mean that the results of the G-8 summit later this week will be unsatisfactory."