The conference of the Group of 8 industrialized countries ended Friday with mixed results -- modest progress here, questionable moves there and doubts about what was really achieved.

Regardless, the G-8 meeting is always an important occasion, held this year under the chairmanship of the Germans at Heiligendamm, a resort on the Baltic Sea.

This was the last for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, the next-to-last for President Bush, and the first for new French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The personal chemistry and the vignettes are important.

The most important aspect, of course, is the agenda. This year climate change was put at the top by the host, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. For Americans, what was most interesting was, first, the compromise that the United States insisted on -- the desirability of emission reductions, but no timetable and no targets -- and, second, the distance that still separates the Bush position from that of scientists and governments of most of the rest of the world. The U.S. stance most resembles that of China -- a notorious, irresponsible polluter which also works to avoid targets on environmental issues.

Another key item was the failure of industrial countries to meet aid targets for Africa set at the 2005 Gleneagles G-8 summit. Pledges were made this time of $60 billion to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa. What was deliberately left unclear was whether that was new money, or a recycling of the previous pledge. If it was partly double-counting, it wasn't notably worse in character than the failure of some African countries to fulfill their promises of economic reform as their part of the bargain.

Perhaps the most interesting sideshow of the meeting was the hyped, expected spat between Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin over U.S. intentions to deploy pieces of a missile defense system under Moscow's nose, in Poland and the Czech Republic. That had prompted Mr. Putin to threaten to retarget Russia's missiles on European countries to its west, reviving the specter of the Cold War.

In a surprise move, Mr. Putin offered to build a joint defense missile system in Azerbaijan, which was not immediately rejected by President Bush. Who blinked in the face-off is not entirely clear, but both sides backed off their heated rhetoric to a degree, perhaps due to Mr. Putin's scheduled July visit to the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Americans' perceptions of their president in action -- undercutting world action on global warming, playing games on aid to Africa and creating a pointless problem with Russia over a missile system that doesn't work anyway -- were not inspiring, but it could have been worse.