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LONDON, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister has admitted changing his
views on combating global warming to echo those of US President George W. Bush
and to oppose negotiating international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol,
The Independent newspaper reported on Sunday.
"Probably I'm changing my thinking about this (climate change)"and the
world's nations would "not negotiate international treaties," Blair was quoted
by the paper as saying while he shareda platform with the US Secretary of State,
Condoleezza Rice, in New York earlier this month.
Blair justified his change of mind by saying that countries would not
negotiate environmental treaties which cut their growth or consumption - another
of Bush's main contentions, the paper said.
Blair's U-turn on climate change flies in the face of his promises made in the
past two years, undermines the agreement he masterminded at this summer's Gleneagles
G-8 summit and endangers talks that opened in Ottawa this weekend on a
new treaty to combat climate change, the report said.
Over the past two years Blair has consistently claimed global leadership in
tackling what he described as "long term, the singlemost important issue we face
as a global community," stressing that it "can only properly be addressed
through international agreements."
Bush, however, had repeatedly expressed anger at this position.
The dramatic change will inevitably bring accusations that Blair has once
again sold out to Bush, just at the time that the US president is coming under
unprecedented pressure to change his policy in the wake of hurricanes Katrina
and Rita.
Last week the British government's chief scientific advisor, David King,
said that global warming might have increased their severity. Enditem
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