… or worse?

As chairman of this year’s Group of 8 conference, Tony Blair has put African poverty and global warming at the top of the agenda when leaders of the world’s top industrialized countries (plus Russia) meet this week, starting today, in Gleneagles, Scotland.

African poverty, sure. There is no greater problem in the world today. Elsewhere, even the poorest people have gotten healthier and wealthier over the last 30 years. But in sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy has declined, malaria and AIDS run rampant and economic conditions have plummeted.

In 1975, Africa had a gross domestic product (GDP) per person twice East Asia’s. Africa’s GDP since declined from $1,800 to $1,500, while East Asia’s rose from $800 to $4,000.

Mr. Blair believes dispensing an extra $25 billion in aid yearly will help pull Africa out of stagnation. That’s a dubious proposition. Academic research shows aid rarely helps and often hurts. Africa’s poverty won’t be lifted unless its kleptocratic governments and feudal economic systems change. We’ll just be throwing good money after bad.

President Bush’s approach is to tie aid to economic reform, but that policy won’t help suffering innocents in countries ruled by corrupt dictators.

While African aid remains an intractable puzzle, one consequence of the Gleneagles agenda is clear. If Mr. Blair gets his way on global warming, Africa will become even poorer.

Mr. Blair’s solution to climate change is embodied in the Kyoto Protocol, which responded to concerns about rising surface temperatures (up an average of 1 degree Fahrenheit around the world in the last century) by requiring reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, mainly carbon dioxide, which is a nonpolluting byproduct of burning fossil fuels like coal and oil.

The only way to make big cuts in CO2 emissions is to make big cuts in fossil fuel use, and that means reducing global economic growth to near-recession levels.

A Kyotolike solution will deprive Africa of the inexpensive and abundant energy that has been a prerequisite for pulling every other developing region out of poverty. Also, declining economic growth will mean richer countries will buy less from Africa (and give less, too).

By a 95-0 vote, the U.S. Senate went on record in 1997 opposing a climate treaty of Kyoto’s ilk. Mr. Bush rejected Kyoto as “fatally flawed” in 2001. His administration has viewed with proper skepticism the claim that humans are responsible for surface heating.

Still, the White House takes the possibility of devastating warming over the next century quite seriously. With little fanfare, the United States has entered into extensive and productive agreements with such nations as Australia, Japan, China, India, Russia, Mexico and Brazil to transfer technology and pursue research.

And, at home, the president’s voluntary initiatives have accomplished more than efforts in much of Europe.

In return for his support of the Iraq war, and perhaps to distance himself from Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair — who has many fine qualities — is joining our moralizing Euro antagonists in trying to pressure the U.S. into making some concessions on Kyoto.

That won’t happen. At Gleneagles, the president should risk rudeness to point out that France’s CO2 emissions rose 7 percent between 1990 and 2002; Italy’s, 8 percent. Yes, emissions in Germany and Britain have fallen — but only because economically unproductive coal plants were shut down in the 1990s.

In Europe’s fastest-growing economies, emissions have soared — up 40 percent in Ireland, 47 percent in Spain and 59 percent in Portugal. G-8 members Japan (up 19 percent) and Canada (up 24 percent) have little to crow about. By comparison, emissions rose 17 percent in the United States.

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