Was The Iraq War A Trojan Horse For Kyoto?

Yes, according to this Cato Institute article by Pat Michaels. Michaels argues that Tony Blair exacted a promise from George Bush to have the US participate more in global cooperation on climate change, in return for Britain’s support in Iraq. Michaels pulls no punches here:

The Kyoto Protocol is wildly popular in Britain largely because the country seems to lack scientists courageous enough to point out that the government’s alarmist view of climate change is without merit. That’s not the case here. And as everyone in the Bush administration knows, warming in the next 100 years, given a very small range of error, is likely to mirror what has happened in the last 40 years. Further, the administration knows that the Kyoto Protocol, while enormously expensive, would stop less than one tenth of a degree (C) of warming in the next half-century, an amount too small to be reliably measured.

He also sees some evidence in the House energy bill that just passed, including the proposal to establish an office of climate policy within the administration.