TONY BLAIR may be closer to George Bush than any other leader over the war against terrorism, but on another huge global issue—climate change—the two could hardly be further apart. Last year, Mr Bush ditched the Kyoto treaty, an international agreement on global warming that commits industrialised countries to sharp cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). He has since refused to produce any serious domestic climate policies. Mr Blair seems a tree-hugger in comparison. He is committed to the Kyoto treaty and says he will push it through Parliament this year.
Even more striking are his many climate policies. To help Britain meet its Kyoto target of reducing GHG emissions by 12.5% from their 1990 levels by the end of this decade, he has come up with a dizzying array of policies ranging from a new “climate change levy” (a form of energy tax) to renewable energy targets to more money for climate science.
And, on April 2nd, Mr Blair hopes to go where no one has gone before: GHG trading. Britain is about to become the first country with a full-scale scheme to trade emissions. Trading allows companies that can cut emissions at the lowest cost to do so; those that find it expensive to cut can buy “the right to pollute” as emissions credits. To kick-start the market, the government even held an auction on March 11th in which 34 companies made competing bids of GHG reductions to win a share of some £200m of government money.
Environmentalists point out that the green man's policies are not quite what they seem. According to the purists, there are two equally-efficient ways to reduce emissions of a pollutant like carbon dioxide (the chief GHG): an economy-wide tax on carbon emissions or a mandatory trading scheme with fixed emissions targets.
Mr Blair's plan appears to embrace both approaches, but fails to put teeth into either. His climate change levy, for example, is hardly an economy-wide tax: he has given so many businesses exemptions of up to 80% that it resembles Swiss cheese. Also, the GHG trading system is based on voluntary rather than mandatory targets, which is why the auction was needed to get companies interested.
But Britain's policies still add up to more than most countries'. As a civil servant says, “it is a softly-softly approach but we need to recognise political realities...besides, those theoretical ideas that look good on paper can be tricky in practice.” Mark Akhurst of BP, a progressive oil giant, says it is a good way to “learn by doing”. Somewhere between economic best practice and Mr Bush's worst practice, Mr Blair may have found a palatable “third way”.