Blair to sell climate control to business leaders

[cal04]

Tony Blair will go over the head of President Bush tomorrow to appeal directly to US business leaders to back his plans for action on climate change. The prime minister flies to Davos in Switzerland tomorrow, where he will address the World Economic Forum of corporate executives and push his vision for tackling carbon emissions in the wake of the US refusal to sign the Kyoto protocol.

President Bush will not be present at the meeting, but it will give the PM a chance to argue for reductions face to face with some of the worst polluters on the planet whilst chairing the G8 group of industrialised nations.

Today at a conference to present the findings of the International Climate Change Taskforce, the former minister Stephen Byers, also a close confidante of the PM, said: "It's good he's going to talk to an audience that never normally hears this and has a lot of respect for Tony Blair. "He will stress this as a priority. The PM is very seized by the importance of climate change."

President Bush, who pulled out of the Kyoto treaty on reducing greenhouse gases early in 2001, is not attending Davos, though the chief executives of most of the 1,000 biggest corporations in the world will be there, as well as 20 heads of state.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,9061,1398116,00.html

[Acryliccalico]

1. I think this is smart on his

part. Now if everyone could figure a way to do that, we could just leave him OUT. :kick:

[htuttle]

2. I love the first line of that

"Tony Blair will go over the head of President Bush tomorrow to appeal directly to US business leaders to back his plans for action on climate change."

I guess he's going to go talk to Bush's real bosses.

[pfitz59]

3. "Going over (the boss') head!"

Bad poodle! Bad Tony!

[w4rma]

4. Yup. He's going to talk to the aristocracy, directly. (nt)