Scotsman.com News - Latest News - No Trade-off Between Warming and Terrorism

The Government hit back today at claims that it tried to gag its top scientific adviser after he warned global warming was a more serious threat than international terrorism.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said ministers were committed to tackling both challenges but that there was no trade-off between the two.

The Prime Minister’s principal private secretary reportedly told Sir David King, Tony Blair’s chief scientist, to limit his contact with the media after he criticised President George Bush’s climate change policy.

Mr Straw said international action to tackle global warming was “extremely important”.

“But there is no suggestion it is an alternative to action to combat terrorism,” he said.

He said he knew of “no kind of calculus” whereby action in one area could negate the need for action in the other.

“We have got to do both, for sure,” he said.

Speaking after talks in London with the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, Mr Straw said: “We have got to deal with climate change and deal with international terrorism, again principally through international and local action.”

Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix yesterday backed Sir David’s view. He said the international community overestimated the danger of terrorism and environmental global risks were of equal, if not greater, magnitude.

The Liberal Democrats today demanded the Prime Minister reveal if he did try to “muzzle” Sir David.

Lib Dem environment spokesman Norman Baker said Mr Blair must say if he had come under pressure from the USA to act against the scientist.

“Sir David has a duty, on behalf of the nation, to speak up,” he said.

“He must not be pushed around like some trainee civil servant. His advice that climate change is at least as big a threat to us as terrorism is clear, and has been echoed by Hans Blix only yesterday.

“The Prime Minister is letting the country down. He needs to show the same urgency in tackling climate change as he has done in tackling terrorism.

“Sadly, it seems he’s keener to cave in to the Americans.”

The reports are bound to be used by Mr Blair’s critics as evidence he is too subservient to President Bush.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Ancram used his speech to the Tory spring conference in Harrogate yesterday to promise a Conservative Government would not kow-tow to Washington.
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