A climate change deal has been done. Tony Blair has hailed it as "a major, major step forward". Green campaigners will be rather less enthusiastic.
The case for this deal is:
• It's the first time that the Americans have agreed to participate in a post-Kyoto process.
• They've agreed to go via the UN and not to bypass it.
• President Bush has signed up to the need to make substantial cuts in emissions.
• The Kyoto deal was never ratified by the US Congress. If anyone can deliver a post-Kyoto deal it's George Bush.
The case against it is:
• The US has still held out against setting a specific goal for cuts in greenhouse gases. Only they and Russia did so.
• This is, in the end, only an agreement to try to seek an agreement.
• President Bush has made clear that he won't make cuts if the Chinese and the Indians don't do it. They may refuse.
You decide.
Tony Blair and George Bush have just strolled out onto the lawn of the Kempinsky hotel for their last ever joint appearance.
The president talked of his regret that this would be their last meeting and his nostalgia. He also uttered at least some of the words which the prime minister has waited to hear. It is important, he said, to set an international goal for global gas emissions though he wouldn't, even when pressed, say what that goal should be or when it should come. Tony Blair says he hopes to get Bush's signature to a agreement to get a new treaty by 2009 involving all the big polluters which will commit to a substantial cut in emissions "of the order" of the EU target of a 50% cut by 2050.
It was perhaps fitting, though, that their last appearance involved a question about British kickbacks to a Saudi prince who's a friend of the president. When I asked Tony Blair whether he'd known about it, he paused and the president joked that he was glad that he didn't have to answer. That gave the PM the chance to decide that he would refuse to answer the question and simply point out again that an investigation would have wrecked a vital relationship and cost thousands of British jobs.
The PM said he wasn't nostalgic for these gigs. I am.
UPDATE: The tape of the PM and the president's words is stuck along with me on Molli - that's the name of the steam train which takes we hacks the couple of kilometres from Media-land to Leader-land at the G8.
It will have taken us six hours to get six minutes of comment.
UPDATE 2: Why, I wondered, was the G8 train called Molli. Well, I was told, many years ago a woman passenger objected to a fellow passenger smoking by throwing his cigar out of the window. Unimpressed he threw out Molli - her pet dog. Tragic, but true.
G8 SUMMIT, HEILIGENDAMM, GERMANY: I am waiting for the last public words together of the West's best friends - Tony and George. A few weeks ago at their last summit in Washington the President admitted that that the Prime Minister's consistent backing for him has caused lasting damage. Now - though he would never say so - Tony Blair wants George Bush to back him on climate change.
Mr Blair is determined to use his last visit to the world's most exclusive club not as a photo opportunity but an opportunity to get a meaningful agreement. He - and his ally, Angela Merkel who is hosting this summit - have already had one setback. They hoped to persuade the Americans to back a target for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. "No way" was the US reply, even before this summit began. It is not the job, they insist, of the G8 to set targets for individual countries.
So, the negotiations now focus on persuading Bush to agree to the principle of setting targets and to a form of words - "substantial cut" perhaps - which limit his wriggle room. In addition, Blair and Merkel want wording that makes clear that the climate change talks the US plans to host feed into rather than become an alternative to the UN's post-Kyoto process.
PS Lest you think this time by the seaside is impossibly glamorous, I was forced out of bed four hours ago i.e. before 5am to go through security in the hope of asking one question.
