While Americans were fixated on relentless coverage of the Michael Jackson memorial last week, President Barack Obama was shoring up the country's international stature as he toured in connection with the Group of Eight Summit in Italy.

Global summitry is marked by rigid protocols and orchestrated photo ops, yet some tangible diplomatic progress was made. Incremental progress was reached on global climate change and reduction of nuclear arsenals.

Perhaps the greatest significance of Obama's tour was symbolic: America acting more like a partner than an outlier.

The United States asserted itself as a global leader on environmental issues and arms reduction. This, despite deep conflicts among the industrialized powers in the G-8 and rapidly developing countries such as China, India, Brazil and Mexico.

Obama got a rock-star reception in the nations he visited, but his charisma was less helpful in bridging the divide on climate change issues between developing and industrialized nations.

The entire G-8 (United States, Canada, Russia, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Germany) for the first time agreed to limit warming of the Earth to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, a goal that would require massive changes in how energy is generated and used in everything from automobiles and buildings to manufacturing plants.

The G-8 agreed broadly (without specifying how) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 — that Obama has yet to persuade Congress to accept that goal. The Obama administration had hoped to convince China, India and other nations to sign onto the plan as well, but that didn't happen.

Obama emerged as the point man in the effort to bridge the chasm between industrial and developing nations. On Thursday, he chaired a 17-nation Major Economies Forum that included other countries that are large carbon emitters.

In his speech in L'Aquila, Italy, Obama said the G-8's collective effort on climate change was an important start, but that reaching the goals "would not be easy."

That's a gigantic understatement. Finding common ground on reducing pollution and creating new alternative energy sources among rich nations and poor ones would be difficult enough if the world economy were booming. Doing so in the teeth of a severe global recession is a jigsaw puzzle of competing geopolitical interests.

Poor nations see no reason to limit the kind of carbon fuel-based industries that are key to their development if wealthier nations won't do so first. To convince them otherwise might require heavy subsidies that developed nations say they can't afford.

Before heading to Italy, Obama met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in an effort to "reset" U.S.-Russia relations. Russia may be less interested in such a reset than the United States, but Obama did improve dialogue, including an agreement to reduce each country's nuclear weapons stockpiles by at least one-fourth.

The president ended his trip by promoting farming and financial aid to combat poverty while he visited the West African nation of Ghana over the weekend.

Diplomatic progress often is measured in millimeters, and so it was on this trip. But the G-8's agreement, however hesitant, on global climate change is important, as is the step toward reducing the world's nuclear arsenal. Distracted Americans should pause and take note.