Copenhagen Countdown: 24 days
Here in London, we've reached that time of year when the Sun rises after you do and sets comfortably before you leave the office. And the hours in between are filled with grey, malevolent drizzle.
Have the week's diplomatic moves shed more light than the Sun is currently doing here on the likelihood of reaching a climate deal at the UN talks next month?
It's been a relatively quiet week; but if the latest moves mean anything, a deal is further away than ever.
While European delegates to the preparatory conference in Barcelona that ended a week ago were saying variations on the "deal is unlikely but possible" theme, now the "unlikely" bit of it has hardened.
Now it's emerged that at a "COP 15.5" - a follow-up summit in the middle of next year.
As this had previously been raised as a possibility and then discarded, the logical conclusion from its resurrection is that the chances of a substantial agreement next month have slipped from slim to infinitesimally tiny.
Finance ministers from G20 countries in the Scottish town of St Andrews. On their to-do list was an item marked "decide what we're going to do about financing a climate deal".
makes it clear that this item is still on the to-do list. They "recognised the need to increase significantly and urgently the scale and predictability of finance" and "that finance will play an important role in the delivery of the outcome at Copenhagen".
But on new ideas on how to raise money and manage it - and of new commitments - there was nothing.
Eleven of the countries likely to be recipients of adaptation funding if and when any materialises on Monday and Tuesday for a mini-summit.
It marked the first meeting of a new grouping - the V11, V standing for "vulnerable".
Their declaration broke little new ground in calling for tough targets on emissions (aiming for 350ppm CO2e rather than the 450ppm that other blocs find acceptable) and for a substantial increase in funds on the table (1.5% of developed countries' GDP).
They did, though, vow to move towards carbon-neutrality - partly, it seems, as a way of shaming richer nations who have not made such pledges.
that it will take to Copenhagen a target of curbing the rate of emissions growth by about 40% by 2020 - the majority to be achieved through cutting Amazonian deforestation by 80%.
And as if by magic, that the deforestation rate has indeed slowed by about 45% in the last year.
This is exactly the sort of commitment that industrialised nations say they want to see from the major developing countries - it's explicitly asked for in the - and the more developing countries produce such figures, the more pressure there will be on richer nations to step up their own commitments.
Denmark, host of next month's UN summit, heads of state and government from every UN country, in what it sees as an "upgrading" of the talks' importance.
About 40 have indicated they will come - to declare publicly during the week.
Whether President Obama is among them , he said in an interview with Reuters. If his presence can secure a deal, he'll go - if not, he won't.
What is still missing is any sign of whether the US will put any numbers on the table for cutting emissions or providing finance.
In one sense, this is a surprise.
Progress of the Boxer-Kerry bill this week, with leading Democrat senators saying debate is likely to be delayed until January.
That confirms that if the President goes to Copenhagen, he will do so without an express mandate from the Senate.
From that perspective, Mr Obama's situation is not going to change between now and mid-December; so why can't the decision be made now, and made public - which would surely induce more leaders to get their plane tickets to the Danish capital?
Here's a thesis - a suspicion, a possibility. Could it be that the decision is tied much more to the and the forthcoming by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington.
to work for more progress on a new treaty; but that appears to signify little but more words.
What could signify something more substantial is his meeting with China's President Hu Jintao.
In September, at the UN special session on climate change in New York, to curb the growth of China's greenhouse gas emissions by a significant - but as yet unspecified - amount.
Could he unveil some numbers during Mr Obama's visit, either publicly or privately? Will Mr Singh be specific about India's plans when he meets the US president?
Politically, big pledges from China and India could influence the Senate's decision on the Boxer-Kerry bill... and if Mr Obama thinks the pledges (whether made privately or publicly) are big enough to ensure the bill's passage, perhaps he will then feel able to make a commitment on behalf of the US at or before Copenhagen in the absence of an explicit Senate backing.
All conjecture, of course... we'll see by the time this countdown clock reaches zero how accurate my crystal ball has been.
As well as Mr Obama's Asian tour, something to look out for next week is the "pre-COP" - the gathering of environment ministers in Copenhagen to discuss the summit.
These meetings don't have anything like formal negotiating status but they do provide a chance to put a finger in the air and see if it smells of progress.
I'll do my best to bring some soundings during the week. In the meantime, if I've missed out anything significant, please post a comment.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
