Tony Blair called for “quicker and bolder progress” in reaching a deal to halt global warming as he made a brief visit to Berlin yesterday for eve-of-summit talks with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor.

In another attempt to stoke up pressure for a breakthrough on climate change, he told legislators in the Bundestag that time was running out. “Our failure to act would leave future generations with a terrible legacy with potentially catastrophic consequences for the environment, our economy and our way of life,” Mr Blair said.

“Given the evidence, given the scale of the disaster should that evidence be correct, it would be grossly, unforgivably irresponsible not to act.”

He urged G8 countries plus the five leading developing economies of China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico to seize the opportunity, saying that President Bush had accepted for the first time that the US should be part of a global plan to cut CO2 emissions.

It’s Grrrrr8 (honest)

As the G8 summit begins in Germany, Hugo Rifkind explains everything you need to know – and lots of stuff you don’t

Multimedia

• Video: Our young man in Heiligendamm

• Audio: Behind the scenes at the G8

• Pictures: G8 summit

BACKGROUND

• Quotes: what Putin told The Times

• Blair reinvented the Middle Ages

• The West is starting this Cold War

• Save the planet: give to China

Related Internet Links

• Official site of the G8 summit Heiligendamm

Related Links

• Carbon map of Britain’s most toxic cities

• Green tariffs ‘not always what they seem’

He said that the aim at the summit in Heiligendamm should be to agree the elements of such a plan and so allow the United Nations to finalise a deal in talks that are due to begin in Bali this year.

The UN negotiations must then proceed rapidly and conclude by 2009 an agreement to replace the Kyoto protocol, which runs out in 2012 and excludes the US, China and India. Key elements should be setting a long-term global goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions and developing a world market for carbon by trading pollution permits, Mr Blair said.

Mr Blair’s brief visit to Berlin was timed to allow him to discuss with Chancellor Merkel the implications of President Bush’s shift in position on climate change and report to her on his talks last week with African leaders, including President Mbeki of South Africa.

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