Kyoto Protocol

World at last taking threat seriously, despite Bush

"How often does one walk into one of these things and come out at the end of it at six in the morning with just about everything you asked for coming in? Not very often." That was Greenpeace climate campaigner Steve Sawyer's reaction at the end of the Climate summit in Montreal.

On the day the world finally enacted Kyoto, the oil industry tried to hold a huge party to say, 'we don't care, it's business as usual'. We hope for at least one evening they've been forced to face the reality of what they're doing.

Tony Blair says he is personally passionate about solving the problem of climate change, but his passion for business has dominated the agenda for too long. There is only one way Tony Blair is going to regain our trust - take urgent action on climate change.

Tony Blair

At regular intervals over the last few years, Tony Blair has given strong speeches on the importance and urgency of tackling climate change. He has told us that this is the single greatest challenge facing the international community, and that the scientific evidence is alarming. He is certainly right about that. He has also said that he is personally passionate about solving the problem.

Greenpeace has been sharply critical of Blair on other issues - on GM, nuclear power and, above all, Iraq. But on climate we have tried to believe in his sincerity. We need politicians to take the lead, and we need to support them when they do. It's not our style to ask automatically, as Jeremy Paxman does, "why is this bastard lying to me?"