Over 265,000 of us are being heard at the G8+5 summit. Here's a picture of German Avaaz member Ayla handing a box of petition signatures to Dr Bernd Pfaffenbach (German state minister, top G8 negotiator, Angela Merkel's special representative) -

That's me, Bernd Pfaffenbach, Ayla and Hans Verolme (WWF's global climate director - and Avaaz member!)

More photos below, or check out our Flickr account for hi-res.

The news came in a last-minute phone call - Germany's top negotiator wanted to PERSONALLY receive our climate petition before the summit begins. The Germans are hosting the G8, so they set the agenda - it was a golden opportunity to bring our challenge straight to the heart of the summit and make sure everyone knows the strength of global public opinion.

So we scrambled. The indomitable Ayla found a little Turkish copy shop in Kreuzberg, persuaded them to spend half the day finding 3200 sheets of recycled paper to print out the petition. We overloaded their computers. She picked up the last 90,000 signatures at midnight. I was up till 3am working on letters and briefing packs.

So we carted our three big boxes of signatures off to the ministry, and walked along the high empty halls, and through the strangely revolving doors - and if it had just been us, maybe we'd have started to feel small. But we were bringing the rest of you with us into those corridors of power, all 265,000 of us, filling the place up, and so we walked into Bernd's office feeling sure and unafraid.

A big guy, friendlier than he looks in these photos, but tough in a corner I reckon, with the head of his office Ulrich Benterbusch looking worried but pleased. Negotiator Bernd welcomed us warmly, saying

"Thank you for this important effort by your global community - we will make sure it is brought into our discussions at the summit."

Hmmm. Did he really mean it, or was he soft-soaping us? I challenged, "We bring the voices of 265,000 people from every country in the world - three in five of us coming from outside the G8 countries. Climate change isn't just an issue for the most industrialised countries - this is a global problem we all share - the poorest are set to suffer most, and it demands a global solution. You have to start negotiating this year, and to set binding emissions targets. But will our voices be heard at this summit? Can it bring us closer to the global deal we need?"

And do you know what? He sang our tune.

"Our red lines are that we will not abandon the UN process: we must have a firm mandate to start talks at the Bali summit in December, targeted on a post-Kyoto agreement in 2009, and we will not accept any attempts to weaken the scientific basis. We need to work toward concrete, binding goals."

Decoded, that's very good. He pounced on the boxes - three of them, full of over 3000 pages of signatures to the Avaaz climate petition. He wouldn't let go of them. He said, "Come and sit down. We have to talk."

So for twenty minutes, we talked very frankly about what is going on right now, and some of the dilemmas. The stakes are high. The politics are intense. A lot of what we discussed has to stay out of print for now. There's too much at stake. But you can probably guess most of it.

Luckily, we'd asked a couple of friends at WWF (the World Wildlife Fund) to come in with us. Between us we had a few important things to tell the negotiators. WWF really know their stuff on the policy, they're talking to the Chinese, the Japanese - but things are so tense in the run-up to this summit they hadn't got hold of the German negotiators for days, so we were glad to have them with us. (The WWF guys are Avaaz members too of course...)

I can tell you, the Avaaz team and NGOs like WWF are unimpressed by Bush's "plan". More delay, no sign of binding targets, the risk of an endrun round the global multilateral process, the poison pills lurking in the detail. In public, Herr Doktor Pfaffenbach would only say "We must see how the US proposals could be incorporated into this framework." Good: the world needs diplomats.

But we got a clear impression that Germany will stand firm against any poor compromise - and we urged them not to bend: the world stands with them. If they start this year, a deal in 2009 is possible... Courage is of the essence.

We talked about poverty and Africa too - he said, "Bob Geldof was on the phone yesterday. We know: we have to do something." Good: let's make it more than something. We weren't kidding with our G8 poverty campaign last month with Desmond Tutu and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty: the G8 are failing to meet their promises there, and thousands are dying by the day.

As we left the office, the boxes sat squarely on the minister's desk. Ready for Angela Merkel to bang them down on the table at a crucial moment in the discussions? Let's hope so. From the inside to the outside. Onward to Rostock. Our banners in eight languages have been handmade by Pascal's Swiss art collective. They're on a train right now.

I need some sleep - and a needle and thread. I tore my trousers outside the ministry and I didn't even notice.

I hope we're making a difference. We're doing everything we can with all of you to make this global voice heard... operation rescue earth, before it's too late.

And there's yet more to do. Have you signed the petition? Have you told everyone you know? As I'm posting this evening - 270,705 and counting. See you in Rostock - whether in the flesh, or on the net. We're bringing all 270,705 of us to the streets there too.