Ministers Summoned as Water Session Nears; Reservoirs Slip

Delegates were still landing in the small hours as the Global Concordat Council prepared to open its emergency session on water allocation Monday, and the arithmetic they carry has not improved. Reservoirs across three continents continue to slip, and Secretary-General Ingrid Halvorsen has summoned ministers who spent the heat-dome week watching desalination corridors throttle back under grid strain. The session, which convenes 22 July, will weigh allocation formulas that pit farm belts against megacities against the migrant corridors now swollen past 108 million people climbing through the hot months. "No one arrives with clean hands or a spare liter," one Sahel delegation aide said in Geneva, declining to be named before the gavel. Hearth Relief International, which coordinates shelter and water for displaced families, has asked to observe. The Concordat has resolved harder deadlocks. It has rarely convened over a resource that, this summer, ran short in the very week the talks were called.