George and Tony Bestow Relevance

The Vicar of Downing Street has assured the world that he can get the Bush administration to agree to a target for a "substantial cut" in greenhouse gases, and that he can get the Bush administration to agree to limit America's options by submitting to a framework sanctioned by the irrelevant, outdated and inefficient United Nations. His reverence is sure that Bush's "speech last week, in which he talked about establishing a US-led initiative to tackle global warming, was not a ploy to undermine the UN or the G8", which is jolly reassuring too. Tony thinks that Bush's announcement, in which Bush committed the US to telling India and China where to get off, was "significant and important" and "moved things on". Since Tony thinks this, "it is absurd to say otherwise"; but, as with so many theological exercises, "on the other hand you then need to flesh out what it means".

Drawing upon his considerable experience of reality, Tony informed us of "two political realities": the first, that "America will not sign up to a global deal unless China is in it", and the second, that "China will not sign up to a deal that impedes its economic progress". As far as America is concerned, of course, provided China agrees to the deal American "economic progress" (or, in Oldspeak, the continuation of the kleptocracy's welfare state) is hardly even a consideration. Tony shows his usual impatience with time-wasting arguments that lead to unnecessary disagreements between the voice of the people and the forces of conservatism: "People can debate this up hill and down dale, but I am telling you these are the two political realities."

One of Bush's senior advisers on climate change denial, James Connaughton, has said that "it was never anyone's intention to have a separate process", as witness Bush's announcement of his intention to start a separate process, and that the US proposals "feed into the US process". Having thus received clearance to involve the UN, Tony noted in true shoulder-to-shoulder fashion that "anything that is agreed must feed into the UN process". Well, there's a load off everyone's mind.