By close of day today, the rest of the world will know whether their representatives who have been meeting for the past eleven days in Copenhagen, Denmark, have made "a deal or no deal," with regards to how to tackle climate change.

Most of the over 20,000 participants at the 15th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) dubbed COP 15, are certain a deal will be sealed. But they are wondering if such a deal will be Fair, Ambitious and Binding (FAB) for people and for the planet?

For instance, the Assistant Director of Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency, Kayode Fagbemi, was of the view that "nobody would sign a binding agreement, since it will mean closing down a lot of industries that produce carbon, leading to increase in unemployment and there will be pressure on such a government."

In an interview, he said "for developing countries, a binding agreement means adapting to climate such as undertaking activities that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions." "This also means," Mr. Fagbemi noted, "that developing nations can no longer exploit their natural resources like forests and fossil fuels for development purposes."

He was not amused about the current international initiative to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation known as REDD aimed at developing countries endowed with tropical forests. Mr. Fagbemi explained REDD to mean, "we generate carbon and you buy," adding that "invariably countries like Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark with large tracts of forests will keep producing, while developing countries must not."

For him and others like minded such as Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of Friends of the Earth International, the principle underlining the mathematics of developed countries using developing countries as a means to meet their emission reduction target of 40% was unsound. He stated "the impression that we came to COP 15 to beg for money is wrong, no we came to ask for climate justice, since Africa in particular has been put in a critical crisis situation we did not cause." "At the end of the day," Mr. Bassey said, "we need a strong outcome that supports Africa's position, a position to support our survival."

In spite of these issues at stake, delegates and observers alike are hopeful that a deal will be clinched. "But it has to be carefully crafted as to induce political commitment, that will be a prelude to what will happen next," said Mr. Fagbemi.

Earlier in the week on Monday, the Africa group supported by the Group of 77 and China, had walked out in protest at they said was a deviation from initially agreed proposals for reaching an agreement on the next steps. The issue simply put had to do with what some participants described as a subtle move by the developed countries to dismantle the Kyoto Protocol, in favour for a Long-Term Cooperative Action (LCA) under the Convention.

The African group protested because the deal that must be reached at COP 15 is based on two previous agreements reached in Bali, Indonesia and Barcelona, Spain that incorporates the two proposals referred to as "Two-Tract Approach." Whiles, the Kyoto Protocols have binding mandates on countries to mitigate climate change, the LCA are mostly political commitments focusing on adaptation and mitigation measures and that will allow developed countries some form of voluntariliness.

The move resulted in a stalemate in most of the formal negotiations. However, through the intervention of COP President and Danish COP 15 Minister Connie Hedegaard, the stalemate was resolved and by Tuesday, formal negotiations were on again.

Ghana's Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Madam Sherry Ayittey co-chaired the session on financing mitigation and adaptation and action. She facilitated the discussions that finalised identified sources of funding, to be submitted to the Presidency for incorporation in her final COP 15 report.

The identified sources of funding included the need for a significant scale up of public finances for adaptation and mitigation, tapping of private financing, establishment of a Climate Fund through which all climate finance would be channelled and REDD finance.

The UN System also organised a side event on Monday to launch its initiative dubbed "Action on Climate Change, the UN System Delivering as One." The initiative seeks to advance the UN's work on adaptation to climate change by bringing together its diverse capacities to assist countries in adapting to the impacts of climate change, while tackling poverty and achieving sustainable growth.

The UN will essentially concentrate collective action in five focus areas, identified by the UN System Chief Executives Board for coordination in response to the UNFCCC negotiating process and in pursuance of its broader mandates. The areas are adaptation, technology transfer, reduction of emission from deforestation and degradation, financing mitigation and adaptation action and capacity building.

To this end, the UN has already begun a number of initiatives including the Green Economy Initiative, which builds on mutually beneficial synergies in the international communities' response to the challenges of climate change and the global financial and economic crisis, focusing on green growth, green job creation and building a greener society and economy.

The session was chaired by President Mohammed Nasheed of Maldives, who recently demonstrated what the impact of climate change will eventually mean for his country by holding a cabinet session in the sea. He called for a stronger UN System that will be relevant and fit in when issues including human rights abuses arise adding, "I suggest we don't need another organisation to disburse funds, we don't need to dismantle the UN."

President Nasheed used the occasion to appeal to leaders to strive to understand climate change issues and also appreciate what is at stake, so that they can act meaningfully. On what deal must be reached, he said, - what happens here must be a good agreement for development, if the deal does not bring about development, I have my doubts as to how well local communities can understand climate change."

For its part the International Energy Agency (IEA), noted that while the details of a binding agreement may not be completely worked in Copenhagen, it is more important that participants send a strong, indicative and ambitious signal to guide the energy investment and policy decisions globally. At a press briefing the Executive Director of the IEA, Nobuo Tanaka said "this conference...gives us a unique window of opportunity to change our current, highly unsustainable energy path." He announced an IEA proposal for "an energy policy and technology blueprint that can deliver ambitious climate goals to be agreed in Copenhagen with energy efficiency at the core of the carbon reduction strategy in both the near and long term."