The Copenhagen Climate Change talks are at their 3rd day and despite the initial excitement of the opening, negotiations seem to have started quite badly… Is something rotten in Denmark? Yesterday’s news by the UK’s The Guardian newspaper of the leak of a Danish text proposal for a political agreement (in the form of an overarching decision to be adopted by COP) set the negotiations in chaos, with developing states getting frustrated and angry by the lack of transparency of the whole negotiating process.

After initial disarray in the corridors for the breaking news, experienced negotiators tried to downplay the speculations recognizing that the document circulated was an “old version already seen in November”, so nothing really worrying for the continuation of the talks in Copenhagen. However, it has to be acknowledged that small developing countries delegations in particular are often informed by the press or NGOs rather than by direct sources such as bilateral meetings with counterparts. This could lead to difficulties to achieve the confidence needed for a clear discussion on substance.

The form of the Copenhagen outcome is expected to be a package of decisions, while the substance will be focused on substantive issues: mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, capacity-building as well as a shared vision on long-term action. In addition, specific provisions for action will be included in the agreement to address immediate needs before 2013.

The negotiations under AWG-LCA (the ad hoc group for long-term cooperative action) are the setting from which the final agreement is expected to stem. The Chair of this group established a number of informal (namely not accessible to observers but only for Parties) meetings intended for drafting the actual texts line by line. Works of the groups are supposed to be finished by Friday when a stock-taking meeting will take place before reporting to the Conference of the Parties on Saturday. The big issue comes from developing country Parties stating that the non-progress or continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, that is being discussed under AWG-KP, will be a real deal-breaker for the whole negotiations.