THE environmental lobby could be excused for feeling like one of the ugly sisters at the Gleneagles G8 summit this week.

Any hopes it had of making climate change a focus of world attention has been scotched by the rising clamour over Africa — previously the Cinderella of global politics.

Yesterday Jack Straw admitted that no one was expecting President Bush to accept binding targets for cutting emissions. Instead, the Foreign Secretary seized on a pledge by Mr Bush to “diversify away from fossil fuels” to underpin a new global dialogue on greenhouse gases which Britain hopes to kick-start at Gleneagles.

Stephen Tindale, the UK director of Greenpeace, acknowledged ruefully that the environmental movement needed to learn from the way Bob Geldof and Live 8 have forced Africa to the top of the agenda.

“We’re not in competition,” he said. “There is no point in talking about African development without recognising the impact climate change is already having on drought, food production and disease on that continent.

“But we intend to start mobilising a mass campaign later this autumn ahead of major decisions by the European Union and the United Nations.”

The task will not be made any easier by the nature of the subject. Pictures of glaciers melting, deserts forming or sea levels rising are — according to one TV producer — “about as interesting as watching paint dry”. Certainly, such scenes will never carry the same immediate and harrowing impact as images of children dying.

Nor, according to some ministers, do the contradictory impulses among green groups help their cause. There has been a reluctance to abandon an historic antagonism to nuclear power, a form of energy production that does not involve greenhouse gas emissions. Even renewable sources have encountered opposition from local environmentalists who object to the impact of wind farms on the countryside.

But Downing Street believes the greatest problem with the climate change lobby is its inability to adapt to changes in the political climate. They are still clinging to the 1998 Kyoto Protocol which set targets for all signatories to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 per cent by 2012.

Although Tony Blair would love to get agreement on targets at Gleneagles, he has accepted that this will not happen because of entrenched opposition from the American Government.

While the US, under President Clinton, initially signed up to Kyoto, it was never ratified by the Senate, which voted in 1999 by a margin of 95-0 not to accept any treaty that failed to include developing countries or which might damage American economic interests.

In 2001 President Bush officially withdrew from the protocol.

Environmental groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are urging Mr Blair to draw up a communiqué at Gleneagles — on both the science and emission targets — which could be signed by the other seven members. Such a strategy is backed by countries such as France and Russia who, perhaps, have their own reasons for wanting to isolate President Bush.

By contrast, Mr Blair — on this subject as so many others — believes isolating America is the worst way of securing progress. “Why,” asked one aide this week, “can’t the green lobby take a leaf out of Geldof and Bono’s book by realising you get more by praising Bush than by attacking him?” Mr Bush defended his position in an interview with Tonight With Trevor McDonald on ITV1.

“I walked away from Kyoto because it would damage America’s economy,” he said. “I don’t think you can expect any American leader to wreck our economy, nor as an ally and a friend of America . . . should you want us to wreck our economy.”

He said that he was interested in technologies such as hydrogen-fuelled cars, zero-emission power plants and sequestration of carbon in emptied oilfields.

Mr Bush added: “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.”

The Government has been heartened by signs that Mr Bush is softening his language on the science of climate change, repeatedly acknowledging in recent weeks that human activity has at least contributed to it. But, rather than being obsessed by “the theology” of the scientific arguments, Mr Blair says the world needs to understand US opposition.

He acknowledges that the American economy is more reliant than the EU on burning oil and other high-emission fossil fuels, while the importance of domestic coal production in swing states such as West Virginia make it politically difficult to sign up to targets that would devastate this industry.

Another key US concern about Kyoto is the lack of binding commitments for developing countries, particularly China and India, which are rapidly emerging as key economic competitors in energy-intensive heavy industries such as steel.

Instead, Mr Blair will work on US concerns about the security of energy supplies to seek agreement on new fuel technologies which could help to mitigate climate change.

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