Charles Kennedy: Prime Minister has squandered chance to push green agenda

At the start of the year, the Prime Minister said that he would make the environment a centrepiece of his G8 and EU presidencies. We have been in the driving seat for the past six months, but what has been achieved? We haven't moved forwards. We're moving backwards.

What could and should have been done differently? Firstly, tough new target for greenhouse gas emissions are now essential. Britain should be taking the lead in getting agreements. Developing countries - especially China and India - must be encouraged to sign up to formal commitments of their own and to principles of contraction and convergence. We should have been working loudly, publicly and proactively to change international minds.

Secondly, Tony Blair had a golden opportunity to use his "special relationship" with George Bush to challenge the US President over climate change. Mr Blair has sacrificed a great deal of international credibility to be at the President's side, entangling us in a disastrous war in Iraq. The least he could do is to use that access to work on the President over environmental issues.

But the trouble is the twin aims of talking green and sticking by the President are conflicting. The contrast between the attempts to play down Mr Bush's reluctance to acknowledge the underlying causes of global warming and reliance on new, as yet undiscovered, technology to provide the answers and the Prime Minister's attempts to employ enough green rhetoric to buy off the clamour for recognition of the climate change problem and movement towards a solution, has been both uncomfortable and unproductive. Not for the first time, the Prime Minister has been saying different things to different people at the same time.