The first week is done and dusted. By high noon Paris time on Saturday, French Foreign Minister and COP21 President Laurent Fabius firmly requested that a streamlined draft agreement be turned over to him and his team in anticipation of the soon-to-begin “ministerial” level negotiations. These high-level talks are the final phase of the conference and the realm in which any potential Paris Agreement will ultimately be decided. Things are about to get real.
So where are we now? Well, after Thursday's fireworks , the painstaking process of whittling away points of contention resulted in yet another new draft being released around 10 a.m. Saturday.
Reflecting the desires of the G77+China group to have some of the more controversial issues surrounding funding and liability teased out into a separate stream of language for clearer negotiating purposes, the new draft came in two forms, a 38-page primary document that featured “bridging proposals” by the conference facilitators aimed at addressing the biggest of the aforementioned issues and a 46-page total compilation document that more completely represents the sticking points.