The back-room meetings can often be seen as the most interesting..
While the big news has been the committment hammered out by a Sarcovski/Merkel collaberation on the cut in global carbon emissions by the middle of the century, George has again held back on any firm indication that the US will hold to any agreed amounts..
But.. here's George and Vlad working out an agreement on the emplacement of a new defence system for Northern Europe.. will perhaps the first coalition between the US and Russia, in a defence initiative..
It would allow the construction of the interceptor missiles in Poland.. but rather than building a radar system in the Czeck Republic, the US would share the existing resources the Russians have in place..
Yup. sure signs there of a Cold War..
And.. both India and China have been 'urged' by the G8.. to sign up to the carbon emission targets the rest of the industrialised nations are beginning to do..
Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon says it is unfair to target India when the problem of global warming has been created by the industrialised countries.
Now, somehow this argument would be irrelevant..?
The fact is, the problem exists, and despite the fact that India has the third-largest growing economy, surely it must be obvious that it's prosperity must be tempered with responsibility.. There will surely be fingers pointed, when water levels rise to the point, where during the monsoon season, the entire Eastern Lowlands disappear underwater..
And the source of most of the country's food supply, eradicated..
India and China have an unique chance.
To achieve global presence of some stature, while doing it using energy sources that did not involve primarily the combustion of carbon fuels..
It would be an approach the Western World itself might want to have an active stake in.. supplying the technology and the manufacturing infrastructure to afford the Asian market bio-friendly energy..
That, while beginning the incredibly difficult conversion away from gasoline.. oil.. coal.. in an economy that has grown to it's presence size and stature dependant on those fuels..
Perhaps though.. in the case of China and India.. it could be a case of 'get 'em young.. and teach 'em right..'