Ban Ki-Moon has convinced 80 heads of state to come to the UN and stand shoulder to shoulder on the issue of global warming, but a lot of the focus has been on the absent guest. George Bush refused to come along, and only agreed to attend the post-summit dinner as a personal favour to the UN secretary general.
There was a lot of talk in June of a breakthrough on climate change at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, but it was nothing of the sort. It now appears it was simply in the interests of the key players to make it sound that way. Angela Merkel wanted her summit to be a success. Tony Blair wanted to depart the stage on a high note and George Bush needed to ease the international pressure on him.
The fact is the rift on what to do about climate change is as wide as ever. Bush is holding his own separate meeting of big polluting economies on Thursday and Friday this week, when he will push his own approach for dealing with the problem - each country setting its own non-mandatory goals according to its own circumstances.
The prospect of a parallel track on global warming now looks less of a threat, however. British and European officials say the US approach has run out of steam. It failed to gain momentum at the APEC meeting earlier this month, and its other principal backer, John Howard, may be out of a job by the end of the year, after the Australian elections.
So, at present, it is no-score draw. The US has not signed on with the mainstream cap-and-trade approach to the problem, but Washington is no longer believed to be strong enough to hijack the UN conference on the issue in Bali in December.
The feeling at the UN this week is that concerted action may have to wait until after Bush has left office, in 2009, just in time for the planned meeting in Copenhagen when the successor treaty to Kyoto is supposed to be put down in detail on paper. By then the European hope is that China, the other major sceptic will sign on as well, to avoid isolation. Until then, everyone has agreed to get along and avoid public spats, just like at Heiligendamm.
