It all got hammered out eventually with a bland, if sometimes
incoherent, communiqué - but not without some dramas.
The biggest was over climate change, when - just a few days before the
leaders met - President Bush tried to derail the UN negotiations by
proposing a series of American-led talks among the world's top
polluters with no more demanding a goal than vaguely aiming at
agreeing a series of non-binding measures.
This spoiling tactic had been in preparation for months, with one of
the President's top climate hatchet men, James Connaughton, circling
the globe trying to persuade other countries to sign up for it.
And Mr Blair made things worse by appearing enthusiastically to
endorse it.
By the time the summiteers headed home on Friday evening, however, the
Toxic Texan appeared to have lost on points.
His sabotage attempt had been largely defused and he had been forced
to cross several of his negotiating "red lines".
And Mr Blair and Mrs Merkel, though unable to achieve their stated
objectives, had not had to cross "red lines of their own", and managed
to maintain forward momentum towards a new climate change agreement.
Not that this is obvious from the communiqué, which makes depressing
reading.
The original German draft, as first reported in The Independent on
Sunday in April, pledged to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by half
over 1990 levels by 2050, so as to keep global warming to an extra two
degrees Celsius - and called for a 20 per cent increase in energy
efficiency by 2020 and "cap and trade" programmes (national allowances
of greenhouse gas emissions which can be bought and sold).
None of this should have been contentious.
The two-degree limit is the least scientists say will be necessary to
avoid climate change escalating out of control: the 50 per cent cut is
what is needed to meet it.
The energy efficiency target is easily achievable with existing
technology, and cap and trade was an American invention in the first
place.
But President Bush set his face against them.
All that appears in the communiqué is a vague reference to cap and
trade and a curious and apparently meaningless construction under
which the leaders agree to "consider seriously the decisions made by
the European Union, Canada and Japan which include at least a halving
of global emissions by 2050".
Thus far it looks as if the President won.
But in fact he was forced to cross red lines in agreeing to any
mention whatsoever of the 50 per cent cut or to cap and trade
measures.
And he was forced to give even more, previously unsurrenderable,
ground, by accepting that climate negotiations should proceed through
the United Nations with an agreement reached by 2009.
It took a massive effort by an alliance of Angela Merkel, Tony Blair
and Nicolas Sarkozy to achieve even this much.
Mrs Merkel went first, over lunch with the President on Wednesday,
getting him to scale down his diversionary plans and to accept that
negotiations should continue through the UN.
She then handed over to Mr Blair and Mr Sarkozy, who discussed tactics
while travelling to a formal dinner at a nearby castle, and then
jointly nobbled the President.
The final act was played out over breakfast the next day when the
Prime Minister and Mr Bush worked out the wording on the 50 per cent
cut.
It all seemed too much for the President to stomach;
he failed to attend the first session the next morning with a tummy
upset.
But he emerged to meet the leaders of China, India, Brazil, South
Africa and Mexico - also invited to the summit - and tell them that he
was committed to taking action on climate change.
Set aside the desperate need for rapid action to bring global warming
under control - or the Merkel-Blair campaign - and such progress is
pretty pathetic.
But compared to Mr Bush's previous position it is dramatic.
Not long ago he was resisting even holding talks about new
negotiations on climate change.
The momentum is also now against him, and his presidency does not have
long to run.
From The Independent, 6/10/07:
http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.independent.co.uk%2Fworld%2Fpolitics%2Farticle2640317.ece
So is the world a better place after the G8 summit? The answer might
surprise you
George Bush's usual attempts at stalling any significant action over
climate change in Heiligendamm were weakened by the
Blair-Merkel-Sarkozy united front.
Geoffrey Lean and Raymond Whitaker report
When George Bush first met Angela Merkel, shortly after she became the
Chancellor of Germany 18 months ago, he thought he had finally found a
friend from "Old Europe".
Believing - like British ministers at the time - that the right-wing
former East German would be far less interested in the environment
than the red-green government she had toppled - he patronisingly
suggested that they could forget the Kyoto protocol.
"Mr President, you are mistaken," Mrs Merkel announced, drawing
herself up to her full 5ft 8in.
"I am one of those responsible for the protocol."
And she told him how, as her country's environment minister, she had
chaired the meeting that had made the crucial breakthrough on the road
to Kyoto, and then led its negotiating team when the treaty was
agreed.
Over the past six months, the increasingly embattled President has had
plenty of opportunity to remember his faux pas.
For the Chancellor - the youngest person, as well as the first woman -
to hold the office, has constantly harried him to drop his obstruction
to negotiating new international measures through the United Nations
for when the protocol's targets expire in 2012.
Indeed, she has formed a double act with Tony Blair.
Between them they recruited a formidable team of allies including the
European Union President, Jose Manuel Barroso, the Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe, the new French President Nicolas Sarkozy and even
Rupert Murdoch - and joined forces with the Republican governors led
by Arnold Schwarzenegger, congressional and business leaders, and even
leaders of the religious right putting pressure on Mr Bush at home.
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Harry
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