NZ 'must play world role' on climate change

Tony Blair took a cruise with wife Cherie (sitting) and Prime Minister Helen Clark on the Auckland Harbour today. Picture / Jeff Brass

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said New Zealand has a significant role to play in persuading other governments to tackle global warming.

He said by video link from Auckland to a conference in Wellington today that the country could be an agent for change.

Mr Blair said: "There's a lot that can be done from countries like New Zealand to give a signal to the rest of the world."

It could persuade others to adopt reasonable policies for sustainability, he told the climate change and governance conference at Te Papa.

Mr Blair, who is in New Zealand on a 24-hour visit, said the pressure must be kept on governments to address climate change whether or not they are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol Agreement.

Ordinary people could also put the onus on governments to take action, he said.

"One of the things you and other people can do is keep up the pressure... there are going to be some difficult decisions for government".

In Britain, which was expected to fall short of its target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent, a climate change levy was being introduced on heavy industrial emitters, but it was a tough step for a government, Mr Blair said.

He told the conference: "What people like you can do is to keep up the pressure on all of us, and the pressure on society as a whole to deal with this issue responsibly and quickly."

During a speech in Australia yesterday Mr Blair called for a broad agreement on global warming that could get China, India and the United States on board.

"I think it is possible to build, out of the initiatives that are happening today, a more realistic framework that gives us a real chance of being able to reduce emissions... and protect the climate," he said.

Responding to a question from former New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger, Mr Blair said European governments and companies needed to develop technologies that were good for the environment and which would allow sustainable economic growth.

One possibility was for changes to the European agricultural policy to help farmers to switch from producing food to producing biomass crops for energy.

Asked by Mr Bolger whether the world was "behind the eight-ball" because it was not moving fast enough to mitigate or adapt to climate change, Mr Blair said that was the risk.

But if the world's nations could produce the right framework and it was genuinely inclusive, they might be surprised by how much progress could be sped up, he said.

"It's almost as if we have got to produce for the environment the kind of technological revolution that gripped us with information technology," he said.

"You've got to create the circumstances in which the investors out there -- business, the financial markets -- think 'this is where the opportunity's going to go'."

- NZPA