Hello everyone,

The first and second days of this week are over and, to be honest, the pace is much slower than last week.  Many of the sessions for the 4 thematic topics have been postponed and the negotiations over text are taking a long time (e.g., ~30 minutes on 1 paragraph in the Air Pollution session).

As for the postponements, most of those have been due to G77.  I think this is likely due to the fact that the text is in English, all edits to the text must be made in English, and for most, if not all, G77 developing nations, English is not their first (or even second) language.  From what I have heard, difficulties with editing the text are mostly due to language barriers (not to mention trying to reach consensus among 130 nations!), not necessarily that they are trying to stall negotiations.  

There had been hopes to finalize negotiations before the high level segment starts today, but that is not happening since negotiations have been going very slowly.  I am about to head over to the UN, and today we will be in the General Assembly Hall!

More later,