Today negotiatiors are advised to stock food and other provisions for the exceptionally long night that they will be facing.

Discussions are expected to exceed the regular timetable – as it happened in quite some cases during the last days – due to the unsatisfactory status of the works performed by the groups so far, both under the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol tracks. “We do not deserve a good mark” said the Chair of the LCA group that is negotiating the Convention in the afternoon, presenting the outcome of the efforts undertaken.

On the LCA table now you could see a set of draft decision texts for the consideration of the COP: a core decision plus 10 thematic decisions. Now it’s really time to fix the texts, because the themes on which convergence cannot be found will be forwarded, full of options as they are now, to the political level. Which is not necessarily a good thing since decisions at that time will be made on very different basis than technical considerations.

Throughout the day informal consultations have been held by the Chair, who tried to solve some points on financial resources and investment, on the various approaches for enhancing mitigation including market mechanisms, as well as on specific mitigation actions for agricultural sector. Other issues have been sent out of the room to seek a last-minute agreement, but apparently the discussions in drafting groups have proved to be disappointing once again. Now the LCA plenary scheduled for at 7pm has been postponed at 10pm, and the Chair will decide what to do to avoid delivering an insufficient homework.

On the KP side a new compilation of draft texts has been prepared and presented, and here the cover page states: “the Chair would like to stress that nothing will be agreed until everything else is agreed”. The KP discussion in plenary setting is planned to take place after the LCA session.

It’s going to be a long long night.