Tony Blair insists economic downturn must not hamper green energy plans

Former British prime minister tells energy delegates: a 'global compact' between nations together with nuclear power will lead to a sustainable future
Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 January 2009 17.17 GMT

Former prime minister Tony Blair has urged his successor Gordon Brown and other political leaders not to allow the global financial crisis to halt the fight against climate change.
The former prime minister called for a new global deal that would set tough interim targets up to 2020 in a bid to "transform" countries to low-carbon economies.
Speaking at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, Blair said: "It is right now, at the instant when our thoughts are centred on the economic challenge, that we must not set to one side the challenge of global warming, but instead resolve to meet it and put the world on path to a sustainable future."
Blair outlined a range of steps that were required through a "global compact" to meet the environmental challenge.
"It needs not just a 2050 target but an interim target to get there …a target for 2020 that shows seriousness of intent and gives business a clear, unequivocal signal to invest in a low-carbon future."
The interim goals would largely be aimed at the West but he believed it would have to be matched by obligations in the developing world. He suggested that strategic partnerships between China and America, India and America and Europe and America would be important, with all three being of "paramount importance".
Blair said there was a need for a step change, not small steps to meet the scale of the challenge, but he also said it was necessary to be practical about what could be done.
"There is no point in demanding of President Obama something he cannot deliver. Instead let us help him deliver what he can."
Blair said global warming required enormous changes in the way the world did its business but that global cooperation brought wider benefits.
He praised Abu Dhabi for its decision earlier this week to set a 7% renewable energy target for 2020. That showed other oil-rich nations in the region what could be done and was an example of the kind of move away from pure self-interest that the world needed, argued Blair.
He set out the importance of a green new deal to revitalise economies, arguing it was vital to "invest now in these times of a low-carbon price for the times when that price rises again".
Blair, who took no fee for his speech, gave an upbeat assessment of his own 10 years in office as UK prime minister, saying greenhouse gases had fallen while economy had continued to grow. "There are now more jobs in the new environmental industries than in coal, steel and shipping combined," he argued.
He also encouraged the development of nuclear power as a way of lowering carbon emissions, although he acknowledged that it was "controversial".
Observers would contest Blair's assessment of his green record, pointing out that much of the carbon dioxide reductions resulted from the demise of the UK coal industry, for economic reasons.