Renewable Energy

Despite the slippage in Johannesburg, which meant leaders came and went without speaking on anything, a world summit deal was getting closer.

The balance between trade and the environment was sorted in print at least; issues like corporate accountability and sanitation were also settled.

But it was emerging that one crucial target - on renewable energy - had gone, because it seems, the Americans wanted that out if they were to agree on a sanitation target.

Jeremy Vine reported from Johannesburg.

JEREMY VINE:
Was there chortling in the Prime Minister's car when they drove past this billboard?

UNNAMED MAN:
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

JEREMY VINE:
If so, it was gone by the time Mr Blair walked into the convention centre. He decided to avoid Robert Mugabe, meeting him or mentioning him. His speech instead was a return to some first principles.

TONY BLAIR:
Today I restate Britain's commitment to play our full part in this. Development is a priority. Africa for me is a passion.

JEREMY VINE:
A convenient couple of miles down the road, the township of Alexandra has had the uncomfortable experience in the last week of acting as a media backdrop for many of the points being made at the summit. It's almost a film set. But Mr Blair headed down here because it is the real world, which the summit is not. In a strange way it may be a relief for the Prime Minister to come here. His impatience with summits is well-known, especially summits where the bottom line remains irritatingly elusive. But at least in the last 24 hours the negotiations have lurched forwards, so he has now some progress to take home.

There've been critical compromises in four key areas: climate change, corporate accountability, trade and sanitation. The final agreement will urge countries that have not set signed the Kyoto accord on greenhouse gases to do so in a timely manner. The US isn't signing, but will accept that wording. On corporate accountability, there looks like being an international standard. On trade, a crucial paragraph has been re-jigged to ensure the environment doesn't take second place to free trade, and on sanitation, the US team buckled and signed up to a commitment to half the number of people living without it by 2015, a real target with no weasel words.

Reporters cooped up like battery hens at last have something to write about, but every development has been attracting criticism.

SIDI MOHAMED DIAWARA:
(Regional policy Adviser, Oxfam)
The general text on trade is a disappointment for Oxfam because there is no commitment in increasing aid, there is no commitment in phasing out or reducing agricultural subsidies and no commitment on debt relief.

JEREMY VINE:
The deal on sanitation has come at a price. The Americans and the G77 countries dominated by OPEC, have pushed and pushed to remove a target on renewable energy which the Europeans were demanding. The EU wanted countries to agree to produce 15% of their energy from renewable sources like solar-power by 2010. Today that's gone. The Prime Minister would have been aware of the way things were moving when I spoke to him earlier.

JEREMY VINE:
You are generally happy with the way negotiations have gone at the summit? It is not clinched yet, is it?

TONY BLAIR:
No, but on the other hand there's been a lot of progress on areas like sanitation, fish stocks, bio-diversity, education, poverty. There is a lot that's been done, but these summits never solve everything. What is foolish is to go to the other extreme and say they don't do anything.

JEREMY VINE:
Are we giving ground on renewables?

(BLAIR TURNS AROUND)

JEREMY VINE:
No answer because presumably they were. The deal has outraged environmentalists.

KATE HAMPTON:
(Friends of the Earth)
We just heard about the energy deal. We believe the deal is worse than no deal. Some negotiators have told us that a swap was done to drop the renewable energy target in favour of a water and sanitation target. This is absurd, given that people who need water and sanitation also need clean and affordable energy to provide those services. The fingerprints of the fossil fuel industry are all over this deal.

JEREMY VINE:
The about-turn has shifted attention back onto Mr Blair's speech, whose uncompromising tone may have given several hostages to fortune.

TONY BLAIR:
Kyoto is right, and it should be ratified by all of us.

(APPLAUSE)

But Kyoto only slows the present rate of damage. To reverse it, we need to reduce dramatically the level of pollution, and let us at least start to set that direction.

JEREMY VINE:
Tonight his colleagues are denying the speech was incompatible with the concessions that followed it.

MARGARET BECKETT MP:
(Environment Secretary)
Every country has to do its best to defend its national interests and as a world community we have to try to come together to achieve the maximum we can.

JEREMY VINE:
Did you feel like you were hitting your head against a brick wall?

MARGARET BECKETT:
You often feel you're hitting your head against a brick wall during negotiations like this. The thing to do is to keep on hitting it against the brick wall.

JEREMY VINE:
After the brick wall, dinner. A succession of world leaders arrived to eat together, with the Prime Minister doubtless relieved that after such intense negotiations there were no other problems around the corner. Well, almost none.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.