 My name is Salim al-Haq. I'm director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development, based at the Independent University in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I'm also a senior fellow of the International Institute for Environment and Development based in London. I'm currently in Bonn, Germany, as a visiting scientist at the United Nations University here in Bonn. And I'm going to talk a little bit about the recently concluded 42nd meeting of the subsidiary bodies of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and also the meeting of the ADHOC program, Derban program, which is preparing the text for the Paris Agreement. We have concluded both these sets of talks, and I'll talk about the ADP first. We started with a 90-page long text with lots and lots of options. Every single item had several options, usually one from the developed countries and another one from the developing countries, and often a third or fourth from various other groups. The objective of the meeting was to try and reduce that text. It was reduced from something like 90 pages to something like 80 pages, which is good progress, but not nearly far enough because it needs to come down to approximately 30 pages of final text that can be agreed in Paris. We do have two more rounds in Bonn. We'll have another one in August and another one in October. So hopefully they will make faster progress in those two meetings so that by the time we reach Paris we'll have a manageable length of text to negotiate. No new items can be introduced. We just have to get rid of items, but getting rid is not easy because nobody wants to get rid of their own pieces of text, and they try to defend it till the end. But nevertheless we will have two more meetings and hopefully the text will come down to a manageable 30 pages by the time we reach Paris in December. I'll mention one or two sticking points. One of the sticking points was the issue of loss and damage. Developing countries are very strong about having some language on loss and damage in the Paris text. Developed countries' option was to just delete it and not mention it at all. It still remains in the text. We shall see how it goes. Other items include obviously the mitigation targets. Countries are now doing their INDCs, which are intended national determined contributions to emission reduction. We are seeing some good ones coming, but they're not enough. We're going to need more countries to do them and we need countries to be more ambitious in doing them. Again, it's something that will take place before Paris and hopefully in Paris we'll have a level of ambition that is commensurate with the problem. The second set of discussions that took place under subsidiary bodies, which are the SPI, the subsidiary body on implementation and the subsidiary body on science technology assessments. One of the important issues that came up in this bond meeting was what the long-term target should be. Some years ago in Copenhagen countries had agreed to two degrees being mentioned as a potential threshold of dangerous climate change, which we don't want to cross. However, the developing countries, particularly the most vulnerable developing countries like the small island states and least developed countries in Africa, had argued for a one and a half degree target because even two degrees for them meant a lot of loss of habitats and indeed loss of human lives. In the interim, there has been a review of this temperature target. It's called the Structured Expert Dialogue and they have produced a report that compares the difference between two degrees and one and a half degrees. And they have 10 major messages coming out of them. I'll summarize one major message, which is that two degrees is safe for most countries, many countries, many communities, many ecosystems, but not for all. There are significant ecosystems, countries and peoples and communities who are not safe with two degrees. They will be safe with the one and a half degree target. And so if we accept two degrees as our long-term goal, then we will have to accept that we are writing off millions of people and very significant ecosystems. And again, the least developed countries, the small island states in Africa, which are 100 countries altogether, which is a majority of the UNFCC, are asking for the long-term target to be made one and a half degrees and not two degrees. We realize that it's a tough task. It's not easy. It's going to take a lot and a lot of effort, but we believe it's possible and we believe it's the right thing to do. And we had a number of demonstrations on this and arguments. There was no resolution. The text has gone to Paris. It will be resolved in Paris and discussed there, but it is an important issue, particularly for the most vulnerable countries. I will be attending the next few meetings of the SP and ADP, and I'll be giving my video logs on the outcomes of each of them. And in Paris at the COP 21 itself, I will be doing a daily video log as well. So please tune in for those.