Negotiators have been urged to narrow down their options so they can agree on how to save Earth from disastrous levels of warming and help vulnerable societies adapt to weather extremes as the clock runs down on United Nations climate talks.

COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber told journalists Sunday afternoon that negotiators were “making good progress”, just not fast enough.

“Am I satisfied with the speed and the pace?” al-Jaber said, as protesters could be heard nearby calling for the end of fossil fuels. “The answer is no. ... Time has come for us to shift gears. Time has come for us to deliver.”

There some were signs negotiators were moving forward on Sunday: A new draft agreement on global adaptation goals - which will determine how poor countries will brace themselves for climate change-fuelled weather extremes like drought, heat and storms - was released.

The draft text expresses concern over the gap between the money needed for adaptation and how much countries are getting, but it doesn’t say exactly how much cash countries need to adapt to climate change.

One option in the draft proposes an assessment of each country’s vulnerability to climate change by 2025 and to establish early warning systems for extreme weather events by 2027. Another option is for countries to come up with national adaptation plans and implement them by 2030.

The new draft “presents the skeleton of what could be a reasonable framework” on how to adapt to climate change, said Ana Mulio Alvarez of climate think tank E3G, but to be effective, adapting to climate change “requires developed countries to provide support to developing countries” to actually enact plans.

Mohamed Adow of climate think tank Power Shift Africa said that the draft “sets clear targets, but overall the text is weak” as it doesn’t adequately address how to finance adaptation.

Thibyan Ibrahim from the Small Islands Developing States negotiating bloc called the progress on adaptation “a bit disappointing”.

A draft text on the Global Stocktake - the part of the negotiations that assesses where the world is at with curbing warming and how countries can stick to climate goals - were still stuffed with several options over how to phase-out planet-warming fossil fuels.

“Now is the time to shift gears and get to consensus,” COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber said in a plenary session late Saturday.

Shantal Munro-Knight, a climate negotiator for Barbados, said motivation to get a strong deal among countries was high.

“I don’t think anyone wants to go away from the COP without a really ambitious program, and that’s where I think everybody is. You didn’t hear negative pushback too much because we are all in that moment,” Munro-Knight said.

But Marshall Islands Climate Envoy Tina Stege acknowledged “there is a lot more work that needs to be done.