Monbiot on Blair's Climate Change Legacy

Blair's true record on climate change:

I commissioned a team of environmental scientists at University College, London, to conduct a peer-reviewed audit of the government's planned greenhouse gas reductions. The results are staggering. Our audit reveals that the government's assessment of its own policies is wildly optimistic. Instead of a 29-31% cut by 2020, it is on course to deliver a reduction of between 12% and 17%. At this rate the UK will not meet its 2020 milestone until 2050.

The government expects that national transport emissions (not counting international flights) will rise by 4m tonnes between 1990 and 2020. Maslin's team discovered that the real increase will be between 7 and 13m tonnes.

In housing, the government has loudly proclaimed its intention to use better building regulations to make new houses more energy efficient - by 2016, it says, every new home in the country will be "zero carbon". But since the energy efficiency regulations were first introduced in 1985 there has not been a single prosecution for non-compliance. A study by the Building Research Establishment of new houses passed by the inspectors found that 43% of them did not meet satisfactory energy standards.

Next time Blair gives a heart-rending speech about his legacy to future generations, don't believe a word of it.