Yesterday, however, there were reports that summit "sherpas" had managed to agree a text all G8 leaders could agree to, which, although not stating that global warming was happening, did state that scientists said it was On such subtleties are summits sometimes rescued. Mr Blair believes the business community will not really get going on the task of building a low-carbon future, and investing in the new technology needed for long-term projects such as new power stations until it sees clearly that world governments are united on the essentials of climate change. Its purpose, he told the Word Economic Forum in Davos in January, was " to set a direction of travel". There is no doubt Mr Blair has grasped that truth and it is reflected in his three aims from the summit. His statement on the science of climate change, signed by all the G8 leaders, is the simplest, but also the riskiest, of his initiatives at Gleneagles.
It will not, the report said, if we do not tackle the warming atmosphere. Their report, Africa - Up In Smoke? insisted the issues of African poverty and climate change are inseparably linked, and the first cannot be solved without dealing with the second. It was a direct challenge to the simple Live8 theme, that if only the economic basis of Africa's future can be sorted by a properly responsible rich world, the continent will come good. Two weeks ago, a group of British aid agencies and environmental groups, from Oxfam to Greenpeace, forcefully pointed out this awkward truth.
Climate change threatens to vitiate all the efforts to help Africa that the rich world can possibly come up with, all the debt cancellation, the aid increases and the trade liberalisation. For everything that makes Africa hard to inhabit today will be made harder by global warming. Hunger will be made more acute; shortage of clean water will be more degrading; disease will be more painful, crippling and deadly; natural disasters will be more overwhelming. But if the unforgettable coalition of singers and performers could have looked into Africa's future rather than at the haunting images of its past and present, they surely would have done. If he does, he will have proved that he was right to put global warming at the top of the agenda at Gleneagles with Africa, although it has been the forgotten issue of the past few days. Global warming was not mentioned in the global triumph of goodwill for Africa that was Live8. They did not sing about the warming atmosphere from the stage in Hyde Park, or in Philadelphia, Berlin or Rome.