Will the Paris Climate Talks be too little and too late?

Ideas include private funding of renewables and setting up insurance funds to protect poor farmers from the economic consequences of crop failure.

The international community should stop chasing the chimera of a binding treaty to limit CO2 emissions, argue former U.S. senators Timothy Wirth and Thomas Daschle. Instead, they say, it should pursue an approach that encourages countries to engage in a "race to the top" in low-carbon energy solutions.

The G7 statement called for 400 million people in the poorest countries to have access to such insurance by 2020. This is all useful stuff, but perhaps not what developing countries had in mind in Copenhagen. They expected rich-nation governments to dig into their own pockets.

Adapting to climate change will often not be possible. African countries, and others with little or no responsibility for climate change, want a separate fund to compensate them for "loss and damage" resulting from climate disasters such as extreme heat, wild weather, floods, and droughts. This would be a 21st century equivalent of war reparations - for climate crimes rather than war crimes.

The idea was first raised in earnest at negotiations in Warsaw in 2013. Both the U.S. and EU resisted the notion. But in Bonn, they appeared to relent, leaving some NGOs hopeful that an agreement can be reached on this.

Still, the French hosts remain worried that funding issues are the most likely deal breakers in Paris. That would be bad for the world, but bad also for France's reputation. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who will be chairing the talks, said in June that "the question of financing is ... decisive for reaching an agreement in Paris. The promise of Copenhagen must be kept absolutely. It is the basis of trust, and for many countries it is the condition of reaching agreement."

Plus ca change. The more things change...