President Bush has ruled out any Kyoto-style agreement on climate change at the G8 summit this week and told Tony Blair not to expect any "special favours" from America, insisting that he will go to Gleneagles focused on US interests.
In an interview to be broadcast on ITV this evening, President Bush categorically objected to any agreement which sets targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, the President said that any progress in improving the environment would depend on developing new technologies.
Asked whether he would be willing to sign any agreement similar to the Kyoto treaty that bound countries to reducing their greenhouse emissions and which America signed but refused to ratify, President Bush said:
"If this looks like Kyoto, the answer is no. The Kyoto treaty would have wrecked our economy, if I can be blunt. I don’t think you can expect any American leader to wreck our economy, nor as an ally and a friend of America and a trading partner of America should you want us to wreck our economy."
Although he conceded that climate change was "a significant, long-term issue that we’ve got to deal with" and "to some extent" due to human activity, President Bush said that efforts to reduce pollution should be based around hydrogen-fuelled cars, cleaner power plants and storing greenhouse gases underground.
"My hope is - and I think the hope of Tony Blair is - to move beyond the Kyoto debate and to collaborate on new technologies that will enable the United States and other countries to diversify away from fossil fuels," he told Tonight with Trevor McDonald.
The Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997 and has been ratified by 141 countries, which have each agreed to reduce their emission of carbon dioxide by 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.
The President's comments were treated cautiously by the Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, who stressed that "the exact theology" through which Mr Bush understands climate change was not as important as the possibility of finding a compromise with the US.
"I think it’s been clear for some days that negotiations were likely to go to down to the wire and that appears still to be the case," she said.
In an apparent concession to the American position, Mrs Beckett told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it would be "wholly wrong and totally counter-productive" to agree to specific targets at Gleneagles. Instead, Mrs Beckett said the aim was to ensure the G8 leaders were facing the "same direction".
"What we wanted and what we do still want is to try to end up going in the same direction, that wherever people come from there is a recognition about the urgency of the problem and there is agreement. What we hope for is quite an ambitious action plan on steps that the international community can take, and also agreement to try to take forward discussion and dialogue about the future."
In sharp contrast to the heady idealism prompted by Saturday's Live 8 concerts, which Gordon Brown praised yesterday for capturing the public's imagination, Mr Bush went on to remind Britain that he feels no obligation to repay Tony Blair's support in the War on Terror with any concession to his more humanitarian plans.
"I really don’t view our relationship as one of quid pro quo," he said.
"Tony Blair made decisions on what he thought was best for keeping the peace and winning the War on Terror, as I did. So I go to the G8 not really trying to make him look bad or good, but I go to the G8 with an agenda that I think is best for our country."
The President struck a more positive note, however, when he challenged the EU to scrap its massive farming subsidies, promising that the US was ready to drop its own payouts to American farmers in return.
As part of the broader American position that free trade rather than aid is the long-term answer to alleviating poverty and accelerating development in Africa, the President agreed with Mr Blair's description of agricultural subsidies in the West as "hypocrisy".
Asked directly if America would drop its subsidy system if the EU abandoned the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Mr Bush said: "Absolutely. And I think we have an obligation to work together to do that."
"Because if we do achieve this business of free trade, and if markets in the West are opened up to countries in Africa, they could be so successful, they could eliminate the need for aid. The benefits that have come from opening up markets - our markets to them and their markets to us - far outweigh the benefits of aid."
President Bush's support on farm subsidies will be a significant help to Tony Blair as he pushes reform of the CAP as part of the overhaul of the EU budget, but any modification to the subsidies will be fiercely resisted by President Chirac of France.
Mr Bush added: "Let’s join hands as wealthy industrialised nations and say to the world, we are going to get rid of all our agricultural subsidies together. And so the position of the US Government is, we are willing to do so, and we will do so with our fine friends in the European Union."
A senior source close to the British G8 negotiating team last night welcomed Mr Bush’s comments, saying he had delivered a "major challenge to the European Union". He added: "Mr Bush has just upped the pressure. The seeds are there of a potential breakthrough." The British, he said, were last night in talks aimed at persuading the G8 to wipe out all export subsidies in the next five years.
Peter Mandelson, the European Trade Commissioner, said: "Don’t underestimate the vested interests. But we have seen reform take place before. The Common Agricultural Policy in Europe has seen considerable reform over the past decade and it can go on."
