Climate change plan for G8 summit diluted after Blair's US visit

The "plan for action" to tackle climate change for the G8 summit next month has been drastically watered down following Tony Blair's visit to Washington, according to a leaked draft.

The "plan for action" to tackle climate change for the G8 summit next month has been drastically watered down following Tony Blair's visit to Washington, according to a leaked draft.

The new text has been stripped of commitments to fund programmes that appeared in a previous leak of the communiqué, which was dated 3 May. In the new document, of 14 June, some key phrases appear only in square brackets, indicating that their inclusion is in dispute, while other important sentences have been taken out altogether.

In this week's version, even the phrase "our world is warming" has been placed in square brackets. The sentence, referring to the rise in the earth's temperature: "We know that the increase is due in large part to human activity" has been relegated to square brackets, as has: "The world's developed economies have a responsibility to show leadership."

Catherine Pearce, the international climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "The new text is really attacking the whole science on climate change. The previous text was weak but at least it recognised the science. The US administration has hacked the text to pieces. I just don't know where we can go from here."

Stephen Tindale, the executive director of Greenpeace and a former adviser to Tony Blair, said: "President Bush is an international menace. Blair says climate change is the gravest threat we face and but it seems his friend in the White House refuses even to admit the world is warming."

Activists were also alarmed by an endorsement of nuclear power that appears, though in brackets, in the revised document: "We also note the efforts of those participating G8 members as they continue to develop the next generation of cleaner, safer, nuclear energy systems."

Ms Pearce said: "Every reference to the urgency of action or the need for real cuts in emissions has been deleted or challenged. Nothing in this text recognises the scale or urgency of the crisis of climate change. If they can't do better than this, the outcome of G8 summit will be worse than hot air: it will be a backward step in international climate change policy, simply adding to climate injustice."

In the latest draft communiqué, new words and phrases have been inserted that appear to state generally accepted facts but appear only in square brackets. This included the sentence: "We are already seeing the impacts of climate change, for example in Africa, in small island developing states, the Arctic and other regions."

Elsewhere the phrase: "Inertia in the climate system means we cannot afford to postpone action if we are to manage the risk if major irreversible change" is only in square brackets.

The May text had a number of commitments for expenditure of unspecified amounts, which have disappeared from the new version. So have previous G8 commitments, for instance, to fund developing countries to "assess opportunities for bio-energy" and "a fund to enable developing countries to participate in relevant international research projects" are gone. Also deleted are previous monetary commitments to "the development of markets in sustainable energy" in poor countries and funding for "fully operational regional climate centres in Africa".

Analysts said the new text amounted to a serious blow for Tony Blair, who has made progress on climate change one of the two big themes for the meeting of world leaders due to be held at Gleneagles Hotel in July - the other being help for Africa. A spokeswoman for Downing Street, said: "We don't comment on any leaked document. We are focussed on the action that gets delivered at the G8 and we not provide a commentary on on-going discussions."

The Bush administration has consistently questioned the mainstream climate science that shows the world is warming due to human activity. It wants to wait for unspecified technological breakthroughs to solve the problem.