A groundbreaking UN global climate change deal is edging closer, according to a French government document, as countries scramble to avoid a repeat of the last major climate conference, which ended in acrimony six years ago.

Diplomats are making more progress than they have formally disclosed in public, although many important differences remain. These include costs, legality and timing of the deal due to be signed in Paris in December, the five-page paper seen by the Financial Times shows. That means that any final accord could still be too weak to slow global warming.

But the paper repeatedly refers to “common understanding” and “shared recognition” on the basic shape of an agreement requiring virtually all countries to take voluntary but progressively tougher action from 2020 to stop global temperatures rising more than 2°C from pre-industrial times.