Blair urges US to listen to international partners
The Prime Minister has urged America – the world’s worst polluter – to heed the warnings from other nations on “interdependent” issues such as global warming and African poverty.
In a keynote opening speech at the five-day World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last night, Tony Blair told over 2000 business and political leaders to listen carefully to the global democratic vision of the second Bush administration.
A score of government leaders including newly-elected Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, several dozen cabinet ministers, some 50 heads of non-governmental organisations, as well celebrities such as U2 singer Bono, Angelina Jolie and Richard Gere, are meeting at the conference, which theme this year is “taking responsibility for tough choices”.
“If America wants the rest of the world to be part of the agenda it has set, it must be part of their agenda too,” Mr Blair said.
“And it can do so, secure in the knowledge that what people want is not for America to concede but for America to engage.”
Mr Blair said there was much “common ground” in Europeans and across the Atlantic to forge a unified purpose and vision.
“There is a wish to re-unify and it is, in my judgement at any rate, absurd if we are forced to chose between an agenda that focuses on terrorism and one that focuses on global poverty – especially as, in part at least, surely, they are linked,” Mr Blair said.
But he warmed a solution to climate change premised on “drastic cuts in growth or standards of living” would simply not be agreed to by Washington.
Mr Blair also said there was an “urgent need to breathe new life into the Middle East peace process”.
Britain chairs the G8 of leading industrial nations this year as well as holding the presidency of the European Union.
Aware that the US has yet to sign up to the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, Mr Blair said the G8 had to send a “clear signal” on targets.
Mr Blair also noted the Bush administration was more willing to work with international partners to fight terrorism and global issues.
Reflecting on Mr Bush’s inauguration speech last week, Mr Blair said he had discerned a “consistent evolution in US policy.”
“America accepts that terrorism cannot be defeated by military might alone. The more people who live under democracy with human liberty intact the less inclined they or their states will be to indulge in terrorism,” he said.
Speaking earlier by video-conference, French president Jacques Chirac warned “silent tsunamis” of despair, such as famine, unemployment, uncontrolled migration, violence and revolt, were plaguing the world.
Mr Chirac called for an international tax to fund the fight against AIDS, which he envisages would release some £6 billion of funding a year.
Mr Blair will share a platform with former US President Bill Clinton and Bono today to press for more action on global poverty.
Newly inaugurated Ukraine President Viktor Yuschenko is penned in to speak at the conference.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is due to speak on Friday, with Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission to speak the day after.
