This paper presents the Planck 2013 likelihood, a complete statistical description of the two-point correlation function of the CMB temperature fluctuations that accounts for all known relevant uncertainties, both instrumental and astrophysical in nature. We use this likelihood to derive our best estimate of the CMB angular power spectrum from Planck over three decades in multipole moment, t, covering 2 2500. The main source of uncertainty at S 1500 is cosmic variance. Uncertainties in small-scale foreground modelling and instrumental noise dominate the error budget at higher Es. For < 50, our likelihood exploits all Planck frequency channels from 30 to 353 GHz, separating the cosmological CMB signal from diffuse Galactic foregrounds throug...