KEY POINTS:
Tony Blair personally emits more than 700 times as much of the pollution that causes global warming as the average Briton, The Independent on Sunday has revealed. His air travel alone contributes as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as a medium-sized business.
The British Prime Minister also breaks his Government's new official guide to greener living, published last week, which says people should try to reduce flights and travel by rail or sea.
The revelations come at a particularly embarrassing time for Blair, as he is planning to launch a campaign this year to encourage Britons to change their behaviour to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Yesterday he was attacked by both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat environment spokesmen for failing to set a proper example.
Blair announced last week that the Government would set up a website to "allow people to measure their carbon footprint", so they could see how much energy they were using and how to reduce it. He has previously described making such a personal audit as "something you can do quite simply".
But Downing St admits that no attempt has been made to measure the carbon footprints of the Prime Minister or his family.
The Independent on Sunday commissioned a leading business carbon-footprinting consultancy - the Oxford-based Best Foot Forward - to calculate them, using what information is publicly available.
The firm estimated that the Blairs have a footprint of at least 8257 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. By contrast, says the firm, the average Briton emits about 11 tonnes.
The vast majority of the emissions, according to Best Foot Forward's detailed report, arise from Blair's practice of chartering planes to take him and his entourage on official trips overseas. It examined Cabinet Office records for the financial year ending last March and found that only one of his 59 flights was by a scheduled service.
The firm calculated that emissions from the chartered flights amounted to the equivalent of "a staggering 7991 tonnes of carbon dioxide". Craig Simmons, its technical director, says: "This is the level of emissions you would expect from a medium-sized business employing some 2000 people."
The firm says that if Blair had travelled on scheduled flights, his emissions would have dropped to 38 tonnes.
Best Foot Forward also tried to estimate the carbon footprints of the Blair family holidays and of Cherie Blair's own flights.
It says that last year's family holidays will have caused emissions totalling 40 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Cherie Blair's personal and official flights emitted more than 27 tonnes. By contrast, it says, an average Briton's carbon footprint from flights is about a tonne a year.
BUSINESS FLIGHTS
Carbon cost
Tony Blair: Fifty-nine chartered planes in 2006, including a weekend in San Francisco for talks on how to tackle global warming with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and chums. Altogether his official flights generated 7991 tonnes of greenhouse gases.
Cherie Blair: Nine trips on scheduled flights: 27 tonnes.
The alternatives
A telephone call or an email. Or, if the matter requires a personal touch and is not that pressing, perhaps a letter.
- INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
