John Vidal reports on Blair's backing for Bush's bid to end the Kyoto Treaty. Predictable really, but he's managed to do this without the media covering the story.

 http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2005/07/07/after_kyoto.html

By Editor / G8 11:00am

Less than four months ago the world’s richest countries - America famously excepted - signed up to the Kyoto protocol, writes John Vidal. It was a painstakingly negotiated international treaty that laid out minimal targets and timetables that rich countries should meet until 2012 to combat climate change. This morning Kyoto looks seriously wounded as the Bush administration and Tony Blair not only played it down, but talked openly at Gleneagles of moving ahead after 2012 only with agreements on technology with no mention of targets or timetables.

Even its best friends concede that Kyoto is flawed and incomplete, but its merit is that it was seen as a a firest step towards a global consensus on how to tackle global warming - a legally binding treaty that forced countries to act, measured their progress and could be easily ratcheted up. The fact that it did not include developing countries such as China and India, whose emissions are rising rapidly, ostensibly upset the Americans, who refused to sign up because of the costs that they believed it involved. Although Kyoto only obliged a few rich countries to reduce their emissions by 5% on 1990 levels by 2012, it is already proving difficult for countries to meet. Only three European countries are likely to meet their targets by 2012.

In its place, the Americans, and now apparently Mr Blair, seem to want to abandon Kyoto and ask all countries to commit only to investing in technology to save emissions. This might include hydrogen, fusion, clan coal and nuclear power, as well as marine and other renewables. Mr Bush claimed this morning - and in Copenhagen yesterday - that the US is already spending $10bn a year on greenhouse gas-reducing technologies. But this was fiercely disputed by Friends of the Earth and others yesterday, who say the figure is far lower.

But the serious criticism of the plan emerging at Gleneagles is that it lets governments off the hook, while suggesting to business and consumers that life can continue as normal and no one need turn the lights out, fly or drive less, or switch their account to renewables.

No one disputes that technology has a major role to play in reducing further emissions, but relying on a series of mega techno fixes to get the world out of a jam seems peculiar, say the environmental groups. The history of technological advances suggests that there are many expensive blind alleys and that they take generations to roll out. Rather than only invest hundreds of billions of dollars in technologies that may or may not come to fruition in 20 to 50 years, say the sceptics, why not concentrate on installing energy-saving technologies that are known to work well already but are barely employed. Besides, the most cost-effective technology of all, say many, is saving energy by using less.

But this morning's press conference has increased criticism of Mr Blair, who before the meeting made it known that he was prepared to stand up with other world leaders against Mr Bush, if necessary provoking a major split in the G8 for the first time in a generation of these meetings. It now appears that Britain and the Americans are moving closer together. What will be interesting to see now will be how other countries such as France - nursing a sore head having not got the 2012 Olympics and quite liable to lash out at Mr Blair for other reasons, too - respond.

John Vidal is the Guardian's environment editor