Following hints that Tony Blair has dropped repeatedly, a White House reporter named Sheryl (perhaps Sheryl Stolberg of the NYTimes) does ask a question about climate change. My mistake. To wit:
Q Scott, Tony Blair, in an interview with the BBC, apparently said that we might see, "the beginnings of action on global warming and climate change at the G8," that he feels the U.S. might sign up to some kind of early action. Any response to that?
MR. STANZEL: I haven’t seen his comments, but certainly as a matter of principle, the President has long understood that global climate change is occurring, humans are having an impact on that. We’ve dedicated over $35 billion of funding to climate research. We just had a report — I believe it was earlier this week — that CO2 emissions in this country have gone down. We’re well on our way to meeting the President’s goal of cutting CO2 emissions — greenhouse gas intensity, that is — by 18 percent by 2012. So we look forward to those talks.
Q But does the President aim to sign an international agreement on global warming at —
MR. STANZEL: You know, we look forward to working with our partners on that important issue; however, it’s important that all parties be addressed when talking about multilateral agreements. And we have had concerns in the past about countries not being involved, and countries that do have a large impact on global climate change.
Q Was Tony Blair wrong?
MR. STANZEL: I haven’t seen his comments, so I trust that your BlackBerry is accurate — (laughter) — but I haven’t seen his comments.
(This is not the first time Tony Blair has tried to pressure the Bush administration on the issue with public statements about his hopes for a deal, but unfortunately, it’s not working. In fact, according to a Financial Times story earlier this month, the U.S. is trying to "water down" a G8 plan to hold global warming to 2 degrees Centrigrade this century with CO2 emissions reductions limits. No real action is expected to come out of negotiations next week, and Germany’s top climate official warns that if no quantifiable limits on emissions are set, the G8 summit "will have failed completely."
Instead of following up Blair’s weak hopes for action, maybe a reporter could follow up on the Germans’ bluntly realistic threats of inaction? Especially since the summit will take place in Germany?)
Kit Stolz 