Some truth about global warming, part 2

Maybe Tony Blair has been reading Discover Magazine.

Tony Blair has admitted that the fight to prevent global warming by ordering countries to cut greenhouse gases will never be won.

The Prime Minister said "no country is going to cut its growth or consumption" despite environmental fears.

Mr Blair's comments, which he said were "brutally honest", mark a big environmental U-turn and will dismay Labour activists.

They were made earlier this month in New York, at a conference on facing up to "global challenges" organised by Bill Clinton, the former United States president.

Mr Blair, who has been seen up to now as a strong supporter of the Kyoto Treaty, effectively tore the document up and admitted that rows over its implementation will "never be resolved."

Mr Blair told the New York conference: "I would say probably I'm changing my thinking about this in the past two or three years. I think if we are going to get action we have got to start from the brutal honesty about the politics of how we deal with it.

"The truth is, no country is going to cut its growth or consumption substantially in the light of a long-term environmental problem.

"Some people have signed Kyoto, some people haven't signed Kyoto, right? That is a disagreement. It's there. It's not going to be resolved."