G8

Police in riot gear clash with protesters on the streets of London and demonstrations against the forthcoming G8 summit begin.

Britain pledges £375 million to help feed millions of the world’s poorest children, as part of a global agreement to tackle malnutrition.

Just what has been achieved here? The summit’s warm words on climate change were criticised by the UN secretary-general himself yesterday, who said they did not go far enough. China and India now “recognise the scientific view” that temperatures should not go more than 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels, but whether they are prepared to…

I am losing count of the Gs. Yesterday we had the G8 + G5 (including China and India) + 1. The 1 was Egypt. Today we have the G8 + 9 + 7, which includes African nations and international institutions like the UN, but perhaps we should take away 1 from that list – so…

What the world leaders are saying tonight is that they recognise the scientific view that temperature rises should not exceed a certain amount above pre-industrial levels – although they can’t quite decide what those pre-industrial levels are.

There is talk this afternoon that the developed and the developing countries, a gathering of some 17 nations, will agree on some sort of cap of a two-degree rise in global temperatures but it won’t be a binding commitment.

I am breathing in the bracing air of the Abruzzo hills but as I write this Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the first lady of France, is not. The demure Sarah Brown is here, and the funky Michelle Obama, but Carla Bruni – a former naked model – has not yet joined this year’s G8 festivities, in an…

By the time you are reading this I hope to be supping on mozzarella di bufala in a medieval Italian hilltop town full of churches stuffed with paintings by Renaissance masters. The reality will probably be that I shall be going through umpteen security scanners along with some 3000 other journalists queuing for the G8…

Just off the PM’s plane in sunny Rome. Brown relaxed and on good form. The worst month of his premiership behind him? Though of course this could be his last G8, with election next year.