On Tuesday the politicians take over at Copenhagen, which helped account for the febrile atmosphere on Monday. On Wednesday the most gruelling part of the whole fortnight begins, with heads of government and other senior politicians booked in for more than 36 hours of speeches, from Wednesday lunchtime to past midnight on Thursday. Felipe Calderon, the president of Mexico, and Kevin Rudd, the prime minister of Australia, get star billing on Thursday morning. Luiz Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, must be feeling at little apprehensive as he has to follow Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran, who has a tendency to cause uproar.

FT Energy Source is posting a daily question for our panel of expert commentators. Below are responses from panel members Vivienne Cox of Climate Change Capital, Lord Browne of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Jeremy Leggett of Solarcentury, Julian Morris of The International Policy Network and Kyoto carbon markets architect Graciela Chichilnisky.

There was progress last week on technical matters such as forestry credits, technology transfer and, importantly, the EU’s fast-start financing commitment – but now that the ministers have arrived, Copenhagen talks are getting down to the central issues of binding emissions agreements and long-term financing. Was last week largely a waste of time?

Vivienne Cox: Of course it has not been a waste of time. What has been done so far is extremely important – and so is the gathering of interests that turn up to these processes where networks are established and reinvigorated. The first week has also flushed out people’s positions and now there is a better idea about what it possible.

He Yafei, China’s vice foreign minister and most senior climate negotiator, told the FT on Sunday that his country would not be demanding funding from the developed world to help it combat climate change. This is just as well, as US climate change envoy Todd Stern has emphatically ruled out any US aid for China, saying China was wealthy enough to fund its own efforts.

However in the same interview, Mr He voiced concerns that rich countries were preparing to blame Beijing if the Copenhagen talks failed.

China has long feared being blamed for the failure of climate talks – far more so than, say, many US Congress members.