What planet are you on, Mr Bush? (and do you care, Mr Blair?)

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Tens of thousands of people marched in 33 countries yesterday to express concern for the environment. But will their leaders respond? Geoffrey Lean and David Randall report. More than 100,000 people took to the streets in more than 30 countries yesterday, in the first world-wide demonstration to press for action to combat global warming. The marches - timed to put pressure on the most important international climate-change negotiations since the agreement of the Kyoto Protocol eight years ago - took place against a background of a blizzard of new research showing that the heating of the planet is seriously affecting the world sooner than the scientists predicted.

The protests were directed primarily at President George Bush, who has been assiduously trying to sabotage the protocol and has ruled out even talking about setting targets for reducing the pollution that causes global warming, once the current targetsexpire. Harlan Watson - the head of the US delegation to the negotiations, being held in Montreal - announced at the opening of the meeting: "The United States is opposed to any such discussions." Yesterday's march in London was also directed at Tony Blair. Ten thousand demonstrators - who created a party atmosphere while carrying banners linking the President and the Prime Minister as "climate criminals" - took a special detour to hand in a letter at No 10 Downing Street. They are concerned that Mr Blair - who put climate change at the head of the international agenda by making it one of his priorities for this summer's Gleneagles Summit - may have recently trimmed his position to please Mr Bush. The letter demanded that he reaffirm the Government's commitment to a new international treaty with legally binding targets on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants that cause the climate change. The Prime Minister has caused widespread confusion by appearing to back such a treaty, then to cast doubt on it.

The protesters also demanded that Britain should do much more to cut its own pollution; emissions of carbon dioxide have actually risen since Labour took power in 1997, despite repeated election pledges to cut them by 20 per cent by 2010. Nick Rau, Friends of the Earth's energy campaigner, said: "If the UK is serious about leadership on climate change then our Government needs to take action at home. It is not too late." The first demonstration of the day took place in Australia when thousands of protesters marched in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Australia is, with the US, the only Western industrialised nation not to have ratified Kyoto. The Australian government reacted by reaffirming its refusal to join the protocol, insisting, according to its Environment minister, Ian Campbell: "We need to do something that suits the developed world, something that suits the rapidly developing world - partnerships, technologies, economic mechanisms that drive us towards that."

One of the biggest demonstrations took place in Montreal where Inuit from the Arctic were keen to draw attention to the melting of ice in their territory, which is threatening their fishing and livelihoods. They were among a crowd of some 7,000 people, around half the number organisers had anticipated. Five environmental groups, including Greenpeace and the Climate Crisis Coalition, delivered a petition signed by 600,000 Americans to the US Consulate in Montreal urging the Bush administration to help slow global warming. In Washington, drivers of hybrid cars - which emit far less carbon dioxide - planned to drive around the White House. And in New Orleans - devastated by Hurricane Katrina - residents intended to hold a "Save New Orleans, Stop Global Warming" party in the French Quarter. Events were held in 40 other US cities. Protests were also held in Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, and Turkey.



http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article331083.ece








Greenland glaciers have started to melt and race towards the sea