last day?/1

Big people speaking. Wen Jiabao, Lula, Obama, Barroso, Morales, Chavez and others. Nothing really new. Every leader pointing out its good will and good deeds, nobody really wanting to move any further. Everybody else getting more depressed with every speech.

- Developing countries insist with the Kyoto Protocol, the Bali Road Map, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, based on the fact that industrialized countries have had centuries to pollute without constraints, their need to be able to freely pursue economic growth. They will not commit to mitigation measure that could undermine their possibility of pursuing poverty reduction, but have all already announced some kind of voluntary targets, and are in general ready to increase them, should a serious agreement be reached. Brazil even promised to participate in the financing of least developed countries' activities. They still oppose external MRV systems.

- The US think an agreement will be reachable if all major economies take strong actions to reduce their emissions, a credible monitoring system is put in place and sufficient funding is raised to finance developing countries.

- EU stresses the fact that is now up to US and China (who emit together half of the world's greenhouse gases) to do something, EU has already committed to the most significant cut among developed countries.

As of now, it seems that if an agreement will be produced, it will only be a loose political statement, with (maybe) some decision on relatively complementary matters. There are still some important negotiations open, and something could still happen, but it's almost impossible to envisage that a comprehensive deal will be reached.

Highlights:

- Lula: "too many issues are still unsolved and the negotiations look more like the kind of bargaining I used to do when I worked in trade unions than a meeting of Heads of State"

- Lula/2: "although I believe in God, therefore in miracles, there's no way a single man can intervene and fix what has not been built in 2 years of negotiations"

- Obama comes in from a side door just before his speech, delivers it, goes out again immediately after. All other presidents, premiers, ministers sit normally at their delegation desks.

- Chavez/0: Luckily he came last. It's 14:15, he must be hungry, his speech is shorter than usual, but full of real pearls.

- Chavez/1: Obama uses the small door like a yankee emperor. He comes in, he goes out, then he's going to slip a text under that same door.

- Chavez/2: Introducing his driver - Thomas.

- Chavez/3: Obama is the nobel prize for war.

- Chavez/4: the fault lies with the capital.

- Chavez/5: after having delivered his speech, he leaves the conference (together with Morales).

Now it's up to the observers. Such a shame that they are speaking to an empty plenary. Everybody's having lunch.