As the first week of COP19 comes to a close, I thought I better quickly try to describe everything. This is my attempt to paint a bit of a picture of the wonderland of UN climate change negotiations, and update you on what twists and turns have been uncovered so far.

To set the scene I feel I should describe Poland. Poland is all pink and grey apartments and spindly trees - where the crows start accruing like it’s the final scenes of ‘The Birds’. Against this ominous backdrop is the negotiations venue - which is a football stadium (I don’t know how that works either … it has a lot of rooms) which you can reach by crossing an enormous gravel lawn. The sun sets at 4pm.

The conference set-up itself sends… mixed messages. The goodie bags they give out at COP19 have all been sponsored by an oil company (their flame logo on the front is as big as the COP19 logo) and an enormous coal summit has been scheduled to run in parallel to these negotiations.

Sorry, about the heavy-handed bleakness, but I’m just expressing the atmosphere as I see it. Inside the stadium there are identical white circular corridors on every level. I have to say, the overall look of the inside is a lot like the sci-fi clichés - everybody is plugged into their laptops, or staring at iPhones, or sitting in orderly rows. But are the actual negotiations looking as ominous as the setting? I will try and answer that by boiling the negotiations down to a few areas. From what I can see, there are four major threads to follow.

Most excitingly, this conference is pretty much 50% the creation of a new protocol which is due to be signed in 2015. It is supposed to have legal force and be applicable to all parties. Will this be the treaty that saves us all? Or will it be the next Copenhagen?

The second thread is: Given this protocol is bit of a while away, and our emissions need to peak by 2017 - what are we going to do in the meantime? Also known as: Short-term mitigation.

The third thread: Climate finance. The first deadline for money on the table has been reached - was it sufficient? and will countries step it up over 2013-2015?

The fourth thread: creating a mechanism for Loss and Damage. We live in a new world now - where weather extremes are becoming the norm and we can’t adapt our way out. This issue has rocketed up the list of priorities for this COP - it may be one of the few concrete things we get out of this negotiating session. But will the developing nations (who are the main supporters) get it through?

I have been mainly following Loss and Damage. Later this week I want to write a blog devoted solely to the topic of Loss and Damage, but for now here is a short update about where this issue is heading.

The first event I went to which matched my imagination of UN talks was an open contact session on Loss and Damage - it had those country name plates and everything. In my naivety, I thought all the countries were constantly repeating each other and announcing relatively bland and vague statements. About half the room were saying our current ad-hoc approach to loss and damage is not sufficient, the other half talked about how important risk assessment was. Everybody seemed to re-affirm how important it was to have a mechanism on loss and damage… or so I thought.

When we got out of the room, some of the other youth delegates were almost hopping up and down over what they had seen.

I was told that what I had in fact seen was incredibly dramatic. That what I had seen was the developing countries all uniting unusually strongly, and saying that the establishment of this “mechanism” was a “redline” for them - and that they were prepared to make the talks fall apart over this.

I have to say, I didn’t really pick up on this - but these negotiations are like a new language to me. It seems the only way to work out what’s really going on is to listen in on whispers and rumours in the corridors - Game of Thrones style.

Doing my best impression of Varys I will try to pull together the rumours of what is happening the other areas of the talks.

Climate Finance

Matt is following finance so please check out his blog over here! Beyond this, the other big news is that the adaptation fund has almost run out of money and is currently in crisis. There is goal to raise $100 million for the fund - a couple of countries have made a pledge for the fund, but it is still nowhere near $100 million.

Short-term mitigation

Initially things were looking promising on this front when the Alliance of Small Island States made a proposal that was gaining some traction. However now things seem grim with much talk around Japan and Australia backsliding on their climate change policies and targets - and just at the moment when we expected countries would ramp up ambition. There is concern that this will open the door for others to follow suit.

2015 Agreement

Something that’s been generating a lot of discussion is a creative proposal from the Brazil delegation. They have asked for the IPCC to write up a report on what countries historical responsibilities are for greenhouse gas emissions. This could be used as a basis for setting fair emissions reduction targets. However, the IPCC says such a report would take at least 18 months. That’s time we don’t have.

The other news on this front is that a decision text draft was released Monday morning (as a step towards an actual draft agreement in 2014) - I have not read it yet, but give me some time!

On a more positive note… On Saturday I went to the biggest march I have ever seen. It was the March for Climate and Social Justice and ran from the centre of town to the stadium - we marched for close to three hours. And holy hell, there must’ve been about 10,000 people there. I remember seeing the packed out city square and everywhere the waving flags for Oxfam, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, as well as dozens of organisations I had never come across before. And those were just the organizations; there was a train full of Belgians who travelled over 1000 kilometres just to attend this march - I’ve never seen anything like it. A chill went down my spine to hear everyone chanting “This is what Democracy Looks Like”