IT'S A QUAINT THEORY THE BRITISH PRESS HAS...:

Bush dashes Blair hopes of breakthrough on climate change deal (Andrew Grice, 07 June 2007, Independent)

Tony Blair has prepared the ground for a tactical retreat over climate change after George Bush rejected demands by Britain and Germany for him to commit to a specific target for cutting global carbon emissions.

At their last meeting before he stands down on 27 June, Mr Blair will meet the US President at breakfast today in the margins of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, to press the case for a 50 per cent cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2050.

But there are growing expectations that the US will agree only to a summit declaration backing a "substantial reduction" in emissions without including a specific figure.

In a setback to Mr Blair's hopes of securing a major breakthrough on climate change before he leaves office, James Connaughton, the head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the US was "not prepared" to back the 50 per cent reduction proposed by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor and summit host.

...that George Bush is indebted to Tony Blair because the PM did the right thing vis a vis Iraq. Indeed, if anything, it is Mr. Blair who owes the debt, since the President allowed him and Colin Powell to go the UN route and make the WMD pitch, neither of which interested W.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 6, 2007 7:57 PM