Blair, Monday: I'm not offsetting carbon. Blair, yesterday: Er, I've had a rethink

Overnight convert to merit of personal responsibility· Greens now urge PM to set example by flying less Will Woodward and Nicholas WattWednesday January 10, 2007The Guardian
Tony Blair tried last night to restore his green credentials by announcing that he would offset carbon emissions from his and his family's holiday travel.
Downing Street made the concession after the two lobby briefings yesterday were dominated by Mr Blair's insistence that he had no intention of cutting back on personal flights.
Mr Blair's official spokesman suddenly announced last night that the prime minister had asked "this week" for officials to find ways to make his holiday flights carbon neutral, beginning with last month's trip to Miami.
Downing Street had been forced on the defensive - and eventually into a U-turn - after the Guardian published on its front page comments made by Mr Blair in an interview with Sky News. The prime minister's declaration that he wasn't going to lead by example on the issue of holiday flights was reported under the headline, "Carry on flying, says Blair - science will save the planet".
"I personally think these things are a bit impractical, actually to expect people to do that," Mr Blair told Sky. "It's like telling people you shouldn't drive anywhere."
On Monday Mr Blair's office told the Guardian it was "not prepared to comment" further on Mr Blair's personal travel. But yesterday it announced that he would offset the holiday and personal travel of his family, including his wife, Cherie, and their four children. According to the Climate Care website, that amounts to offsetting 11.98 tonnes of CO2 for a return flight from Heathrow to Miami.
The commitment does not include the prime minister's security entourage, though that in time will be covered by a government commitment to make all its activity carbon neutral by 2015. The government said last year that all ministerial travel would be offset.
At a press conference last night, Mr Blair said: "There's a massive amount individuals can do. In this building we have energy efficient lightbulbs now, we get all our sources of energy from renewable sources, we have been putting down the temperatures, we do recycling on a very large scale." But he added: "I'm not going to be in the position of saying I'm not going to take holidays abroad or use air travel, it's just not practical." His spokesman would not make any promises for Mr Blair beyond his time in office.
The Sky interview drew a chorus of disapproval. Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the government's Sustainable Development Commission, called Mr Blair's record "patchy and muddle-headed".
Greenpeace said he was "crossing his fingers and hoping someone will invent aeroplanes that don't cause climate change". And the former Tory environment secretary John Gummer called his statements in the Sky interview "a very great dereliction of duty".
Despite the criticism, there was no hint of a change in stance during the regular briefings with lobby journalists yesterday morning and afternoon. The new line came after behind-the-scenes discussions with officials.
Mike Child, Friends of the Earth's climate campaigner, said last night: "There are no technological fixes to dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions from flying. If Tony Blair is serious about climate change he needs to curb the rise in air travel. He could also set a example by flying less. Offsetting his personal emissions while allowing UK emissions to increase is simply not enough."
Downing Street refused to commit Mr Blair to ending No 10's use of people carriers, which it defended for security reasons. In another Sky interview, due to be released today, David Cameron reports how he is installing solar panels and a wind turbine in his west London home. Both there and in his Oxfordshire home, he describes how he is collecting rainwater, improving insulation, and recycling more. "What you need is cultural change. What you need is people to change their view about the environment and to change their behaviour, and I think that starts at the top," Mr Cameron says.
Travels of a PM: £89.82, the price of saving face - and the planet
What should have been a quiet family break at the beach mansion of Bee Gee Robin Gibb turned into a political headache for Tony Blair; it has now given him an environmental one too.
In reply to questions about the prime minister's commitment to the environment after he said he had no plans to cut down on long-haul flights, Downing Street said Mr Blair would follow the example of his government, which offsets all official ministerial travel, by doing the same for his personal travel.
The Blairs will have to shell out £89.82 to offset the carbon his family will have emitted on their two transatlantic flights, from London to Miami on Boxing Day and back home on January 4. Carbon Care, the leading offsetting company, used by the Guardian, estimates that six people travelling on return flights from London to Miami would emit 11.98 tonnes of C02
Mike Mason, the founder of Climate Care, said: "We only have one to two tonnes per person of C02 emissions per year and yet you use up two tonnes in a return flight to New York for one person. If everyone offset their emissions, that would buy us time to put in place all the things we need to do. This is not a green thing, it is physics."
If Mr Blair added other holidays to his offsetting bill he would pay:
· Summer 2006. Return flight to Barbados for family: £84.96 to pay for 11.33 tonnes of C02
· Christmas 2005/New Year 2006. Egypt (Sharm el-Sheikh): £49.76 to pay for 6.64 tonnes of C02
· Summer 2004. Tuscany, Sardinia, Athens, Barbados: £112.74 to pay for 15.02 tonnes of C02. (Some of this will have counted as official travel because the prime minister visited Athens for the Olympics in his official capacity)
The £89.82 fee paid by Mr Blair, who travelled with his wife Cherie, their four children and friends, would buy one of the following to offset their emissions:
· 24 energy-efficient lightbulbs in Africa. Each saves the equivalent of half a tonne of C02 over its lifetime
· 4 energy-efficient cooking stoves to replace atmospehere polluting charcoal stoves in Tanzania
· 300 sq metres of newly planted rainforest. This would have to be nurtured for 100 years
· 12 megawatt hours of wind generated electricity - enough for a year's electricity for four families