The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change. It recognizes that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The Convention enjoys near universal membership, with 192 countries having ratified.

Under the Convention, governments:

• gather and share information on greenhouse gas emissions, national policies and best practices
• launch national strategies for addressing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to expected impacts, including the provision of financial and technological support to developing countries
• cooperate in preparing for adaptation to the impacts of climate change

The Convention entered into force on 21 March 1994.
Full details on UNFCCC are at: http://unfccc.int/.

The Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) is working towards an agreed outcome of the Bali Action Plan that is comprehensive and balanced, as well as ambitious, effective and fair.

Preparation of the Copenhagen Agreement is done by experts (see Roster of Experts).
Progress depends also on the political will of the world's leaders.

The Scenario note on the resumed seventh session, by the AWG-LCA Chair, summarizes the challenges and status of the negotiations: FCCC/AWGLCA/2009/13 (26 October 2009)

The draft agreement texts can be accessed and navigated via multiple means:

• start from the Overview, and select the chapter that interests you;
• move up in the texts hierarchy by using the breadcrumbs navigation that appears at the top of the page;
• browse from page to page by using the [pred (ecessor)| succ (essor) ] buttons (under the breadcrumbs);
• use the top-bar drop-down menus to navigate to particular articles in the agreement;
• use the search button for finding paragraphs that use a certain term;
• (page-tags have not been set yet).

• Negotiations must balance many stakeholders' opinions on what is effective and fair, what is comprehensive and balanced.
• Each stakeholder has its own benefit-cost expectations, and by reasoning translates it into clauses of the agreement.
• Critical issues emerge where expectations are translated into conflicting clauses.
• For an open and transparent negotiation it is KEY that the agreement clauses are TRACEABLE to the benefit-cost expectations of the various stakeholders.

• By using a wiki, such a traceability can be achieved alongside, or within¹the negotiation process.

• If the grounding of the talks and related news is of interest to you, consider joining the LinkedIn Group UNFCCC Friends where news on the UN Climate Talks is bundled, and its pertinence to the agreement draft texts is commented upon. Any linkedin member can join UNFCCC Friends.
• If you are interested in scholarly publications on climate change and UNFCCC, then consider joining the citeulike bibliographic groups: Climate Change and UNFCCC.

• Rapid access to agreement clauses and clarity on their relation to benefit-cost expectations of the participants will facilitate thorough discussion in the negotiation arena.
• Back and forth expansion, in-depth, and in-context, of justifications for either option or alternative, builds trust and awareness, while exposing stakeholder assumptions, as well as resource and mechanism attributes and factor-dependencies that may harm the intended outcome for either party or constituency.
• Working with a wiki for the detailed documenting of stakeholder viewpoints, questions and answers may open up new solution directions and new choice options for addressing critical issues.

• While critical issues receive most attention, the less discussed clauses of an agreement may be forgotten or somewhat neglected.
• By inviting the global community to comment on all the clauses that are being negotiated, one can improve overall quality, in parallel with addressing the critical issues.

• Use the Forum (see left-hand menu bar) or the discuss button under each wiki page.

• The intended outcome is ambitious. The stakes and tasks are many. Effective multi-way communication, and the rigorous deepening of the discourse must go hand-in-hand.
• An agreement without a proper justification for each and every of its clauses will be a poor agreement.

• If you want to contribute significant facts, critical questions or clarifying answers on the agreement, then consider to join: Join the Shadow Group and this wiki.

The current members are listed here: Member page.

• Consider making the wiki part of your plans, in learning, understanding and benefiting from the climate talks! Or just for sharing your views.
• Tagging of the pages will follow after performing an "enterprise architecture" analysis of the draft texts. The analysis will apply the knowledge commons components explained at tab UN Climate Talks.

The wiki has been updated to reflect the progress of the negotiations as captured by the most recent AWG-LCA non-papers. The critical issues, as identified in the Scenario note on the resumed seventh session by the Chair (Scenario Note of Oct. 26, 2009, have been added to the start page for each contact group's results.)

First version released. For all-but-one section, the contents was based on August 2009 Consolidation FCCC/AWGLCA/2009/INF.2. The contents of V. Development and Transfer of Technology was based on Non-paper No. 29.
All paragraphs come with convenient navigation support, and full-text search.

Kick-off of the wiki. 66 days before the start of the Conference of the Parties COP 15, it was decided to follow up the drafting of the Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention. The document on which the first wiki content was based is Reordering and consolidation of text in the revised negotiating text, as described at library record.