It has started!

Three full days and nights of COP-21 and half a day have passed. The French Presidency is now directing the proceedings. Following the hype as well as strict security accompanying the visit and contributions from 150 heads of state, work has been progressing in parallel between governments in Contact Groups, Spin-off groups, informals and informal informals as well as bi-lateral and multi-lateral discussions.

All these meetings are attempting to reduce options in the draft text for the Paris agreement and accompanying implementing decisions to enable the governments to reach a conclusion by Friday 11 December.

At present, little has changed. There are still multiple options proposed for all the major issues such as mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, transparency and capacity building as well as how to raise ambition in the pre-2020 period. Some countries are still sticking to decades-old political positions.

The aim is for the ADP to conclude its work at Saturday lunchtime and hand-over the texts to the French Presidency. Many items are likely to be unfinished although great efforts will be made to conclude as much as possible by holding negotiations throughout Friday night and into Saturday morning. No sleep for the negotiators!!

The French Presidency will then determine how best to get the text completed and to bring the negotiations to a close and reach the final Paris agreement and implementing decisions. This will likely involve shuttle diplomacy involving numerous bilateral and multilateral meetings between national ministers to unblock the problem areas.

One such issue is how to describe the long-term goal. The main options under discussion are "net zero emissions", "decarbonisation" or "carbon neutrality". One topic closer to resolution is an agreement to introduce a process to re-submit national contributions every five years, thereby allowing countries to raise their ambition based upon experience gained.

Issues far from agreement include the fundamental point of how to differentiate between countries in terms of commitments. The 1992 concept of a division between developed and developing countries has fundamentally changed with the emergence of new economies, however, many countries are advocating that the world has not changed and that that division should stay. Many issues on how the agreement should be financed post-2020 remain undecided. Whether or not the use of markets or the engagement of business in the process should be formalised are included in the final agreement are undecided.

There are many obstacles still to be overcome and government negotiators can expect some sleepness nights as they move towards the completion of the Paris agreement. However, the heads of state gave a clear signal on Monday that they are committed to the completion of an international agreement to tackle climate change in Paris; will their ministers dare to go home next weekend without having agreed one....?