Tony Blair

Will Ed Miliband take Britain’s Labor Party from red to green?

Ed Miliband, new leader of Britain's Labor Party, helped to push through binding targets on CO2 emissions. How will he shape the party's green agenda?

Tony Blair, Climate Group, and CAP call for strong technology deployment policy

Tony Blair and the Climate Group have written an excellent report, “Breaking the Climate Deadlock: Technology for a Low Carbon Future (PDF).” While they endorse strong investment in technology development – as the Center for American Progress (CAP) and virtually everyone else does – it is squarely focused on the crucial role that strong government […]

Is Obama up to the challenge on climate and the economy, or will he disappoint like Blair?

It already seems so long ago, when, like you, we anxious eco-Brits spent a tense few minutes on Jan. 20 deconstructing Obama's inauguration speech.

There was plenty to cheer: "The ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet." (Well spotted!) "Without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control." (Bloody good point!) "We will restore science to its rightful place." (Yes! Stuff the creationist nutters!) "The success of our economy always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart." (Ooh! A coded death knell for growth-driven economics!)

And some food for thought: "Our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year." (Hmm. Not much then in the case of GM, Ford, et al?) "We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together." (Not much poetry in suburban light-rail systems, I guess, but can you at least do the roads last?) "We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars" (and trains!). "We will not apologize for our way of life." (That's fine, but don't let it happen again!)

By the end, our mood was rather chipper. Swept along by the euphoria, we felt the difference in ourselves. Even those who remembered the morning of May 2, 1997, when Tony Blair surfed a similar wave into power in the U.K. -- and the disappointment that seeped in over the ensuing years as he turned into Dubya's best mate and a safe pair of hands for the same old elites -- couldn't quite keep the spring out of our step.

Three weeks on, some observers here have already decided the honeymoon -- if there ever was one -- is over, and President Barack Obama, up to his neck in the proverbial, is going to need an awful lot of substance to go with his undeniable style if he is to avoid becoming America's Tony Blair.

Tony Blair talks climate change with Charlie Rose

This is a meaty discussion of climate change from ex-U.K. PM Blair, albeit colored by his timid, centrist, status-quo biases:

Tony Blair downplays the importance of political will in the U.S.

Tony Blair, oddly, just downplayed the importance of political will in the United States, and then, in an aside, said he thinks "the political will is there."

I think he's been talking to George Bush too much. Building American political will is the key challenge facing us if we want to see a global mitigation regime emerge.

Still, the topic of the plenary is "Economic Growth in the Face of Resource Scarcity and Climate Change," and on that point, Blair pointed out that the U.K.'s economy has grown en route to meeting its Kyoto goals. Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway, explained how such growth has also happened in her own country. Both encouraged government action in the United States and worldwide. So there is good news to report.

Yippee

Tony Blair continues to go for the green in an attempt to salvage his legacy: Tony Blair will next week complete a British U-turn over green energy and support an ambitious 20 per cent mandatory target for renewable power as a share of European generation capacity. The British prime minister has overruled his industry minister […]

Now he’s lobbying America on climate change

Am I huffing glue, or is this a real story? Tony Blair is to devote himself to fighting global warming when he quits power this summer by promoting an American rethink on the Kyoto protocol. Tony Blair decided the best time to lobby America for a “rethink” on global warming is after he’s divested of […]

Fails

Whereas Tony Blair just makes me feel vaguely sad, the British press never fails to delight me. No pretense of objectivity here, no sir.

British enviros worry Gordon Brown won’t be green

With British PM Tony Blair on his way out sometime in the next year -- though he won't be pinned down on a date -- Chancellor of the Exchequer (aka Finance Minister) Gordon Brown is poised to assume leadership of the Labour Party and hence the British government. What will this mean for the environment? The British press is starting to assess.

Sarah Mukherjee of BBC writes that greens haven't been impressed with Blair's follow-through on efforts to fight climate change, but they're "even more worried about Gordon Brown":