Two proposals popped loudly on Tuesday: a Danish text, seen by many observers to be mainly accommodating the interests of the United States and other industrialized powers; and one drafted by China and endorsed by a variety of developing countries. Both were criticized by the opposing camps.

The main points of contention remain as they have been for years, with a gulf to be bridged particularly on four points:

• How much and how fast rich countries should cut their emissions or pledge to limit the rise in planetary temperature.
• How much emerging economic powers like China and India should rein in the growth of their emissions, and how they should prove they have diverted from “business as usual.”
• How much rich countries should compensate poor ones to limit vulnerability to climate extremes that are expected to worsen in many regions near the Equator as greenhouse gases build in the atmosphere and seas continue rising.
• How those money flows can be guaranteed, given that past commitments under earlier climate pacts have largely gone unpaid, and which bloc gets to manage and administer the money.

Late on Tuesday, the rising frustration of the poorest developing countries — some undoubtedly fueled by the yawning global divide between rich and poor — was on display in the halls. African environmental and antipoverty campaigners and some delegates marched through the halls pressing for rich countries to pledge to limit warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level, ratcheting down from the 2.0-degree threshold that was set as a no-go zone by the world’s dominant nations in recent agreements.

“Two degrees, suicide!” the protesters chanted.

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