The co-chairs of a multilateral group tasked with hammering out a new universal climate deal have received a mandate to draft a more concise, coherent, and streamlined suggested text, after nearly two weeks of meetings in Bonn, Germany. The new document, expected by 24 July at latest, will not be a formal draft text but rather a “tool” geared towards advancing the negotiations. The move came after delegates struggled to make headway on a 90-page draft negotiating text, the result of talks held in Geneva, Switzerland in February. That text contained a myriad of proposals from countries on what to include in, and arrangements for, the new climate deal. According to a document released by the co-chairs of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), Ahmed Djoghlaf of Algeria and Daniel Reifsnyder of the US, the “tool” will consolidate the “Geneva Negotiating Text” and present countries with a clearer view of options on the table in various sections. It will also make suggestions on which paragraphs of the Geneva negotiating text might be included in the new agreement and which might be placed in a multilateral decision that would adopt it at the twenty-first...