You've probably heard the bad news: There's no chance for a deal in Copenhagen. So why should you care what happens at the worldwide climate summit that opens in Denmark a week from today?

If you've already been following the road to Copenhagen and know what these climate talks are all about, feel free to skip ahead. If not, here's a basic rundown.

Two years ago in Bali, countries meeting under the UNFCCC (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) agreed to a "roadmap" that pegged these December meetings in Copenhagen as the deadline to finalize a binding agreement for long-term cooperative action on climate change.

As you may know, there's already an international climate treaty in place: the Kyoto Protocol. It demands emissions cuts from industrialized nations, but it covers only about one third of global greenhouse gas emissions, and the current commitment period under Kyoto runs out in 2012.

At the Copenhagen meetings, the first goal is for all parties to the Kyoto Protocol (not the United States, which signed but never ratified it) to agree on further emissions reductions for another commitment period ending in 2020. The second is to arrive at a longer-term cooperative agreement that will include those Kyoto commitments, will look further ahead to 2050, and will more broadly address those other critical issues listed above.

This long-term cooperative agreement (or LCA) is what most people probably think of when they think of the Copenhagen talks, but what becomes of the Kyoto Protocol is significant (and very controversial) part of the process. 

Reports of its irrelevance have been greatly exaggerated 

So what to make of all the negative coverage? Well for starters, the imminent failure that most Western media outlets were tripping over themselves to report last month isn't exactly true. At the very least, the "failure" is being greatly exaggerated.

Without question, it appears from the outside that progress has slowed to a halt, and that industrialized world leaders are going to be content kicking the can down the road. But having sat through the preliminary meetings in Bangkok and Barcelona, having talked to delegates from the United States, the European Union, and throughout the developing world, and having picked the brains of former negotiators, Washington insiders, and U.N. staffes alike, I can say with utmost confidence that the prospects for a deal in Copenhagen are alive and well. It's the nature of the deal that has been called into question.

True, a full, ratifiable, legally-binding international treaty won't be signed in Copenhagen. But there remains hope that a strong "political agreement" can be achieved.

What's the difference? More on that later.

Most of the negative press hubbub in recent weeks sprouted out of the public acknowledgment by influential players in the talks that there simply wasn't time enough to work out a full legally-binding treaty. In the words of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, "the best the world could hope for from the summit would be ‘political commitments.'"

Let's ignore for a moment that plenty of observers have seen this coming for a long time. (See Joe Romm on Climate Progress: "This is no big surprise to CP readers or anyone who follows international negotiations or domestic politics. Or Andy Revkin on DotEarth: "Many seasoned participants in nearly two decades of treaty negotiations aimed at blunting global warming had predicted this outcome.") Let's look instead at what officials such as UNFCCC Chair Yvo de Boer mean when they say that "it is absolutely clear that Copenhagen must deliver a strong political agreement and nail down the essentials."

I know what you're thinking--what the heck is a politically binding agreement, and is it as toothless as it sounds? Desmogblog's Kevin Grandia seems to think so. "With all the long hours I've been putting into covering these climate talks," he writes, "I'm sure my wife is wishing our marriage was a politically binding agreement, as opposed to a legal one."

Many delegates are similarly unimpressed. Political agreements "are worth very little," said Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese chair of the Group of 77 and China. "Tell me of any politician who delivered on his political manifesto?"

The gray area between legal and political

There is, however, more nuance than most of these quotes indicate. Most of the officials cited supporting the "political" deal still believe that a legal agreement is necessary and possible, just not before Dec. 18 when the Copenhagen talks wrap up.

Their thinking, rather, is that some kind of political framework is possible within the next three weeks, and then the legal aspects can be hammered out soon after.

Now a "political agreement" could mean a whole range of things. It could be a strongly worded, immediately actionable accord that includes actual commitment targets covering all important aspects of the talks and a deadline for the final legal treaty. Or it could be a toothless, unenforceable handshake agreement-in-words-only that no nation would ever feel compelled to live up to. Or anything in between. The most crucial plot line in Copenhagen will be about where on this spectrum the final agreement lands. Well, that and how strong the emissions and finance commitments from the various parties actually are.

To this end, there promises to be plenty of drama as the essential issues within the treaty are debated and deliberated alongside the very nature of the deal itself. To some degree, the former will guide the latter; the more concrete the resolutions, the more points that are finally agreed upon, the greater the chance for a strong accord to emerge that lacks only the legal language itself.

How much and how quickly will developed nations agree to cut their greenhouse gas emissions? How much will they offer to finance mitigation and adaptation efforts in the developing world? Where exactly will those funds come from, how will they be managed, and who will hold the purse strings?

That's a heck of a lot to be figured out in this first portion of what Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, host of the talks, has dubbed a "one agreement, two steps" process.

There's only one certainty: these two short (and wild) weeks in Copenhagen are every bit as important as anyone has ever thought them to be.

OnEarth community editor Ben Jervey has been following the climate talks closely and will be reporting from Copenhagen. Follow his coverage here.