Ministers Arrive in Geneva a Day Ahead of the Water Session

The formal gaveling is still a day away, but the diplomacy has already started in the hallways. Delegates to the Global Concordat Council's emergency water session began arriving in Geneva this weekend, and the pre-session corridor talks — the quiet arithmetic of who will concede what — are, by long custom, where positions actually harden. Secretary-General Ingrid Halvorsen met arriving ministers in closed rooms through Sunday, aides said, while blocs from water-stressed and water-secure states circled the allocation question that summoned them. "The gavel opens the argument; it does not start it," said one delegation staffer, Aroha Whitiki, waiting outside a briefing room. With registered climate migrants now past 108 million and heat corridors widening through the hot months, the pressure on a formula acceptable to all is immense. Tomorrow the ministers sit. Tonight they are still counting votes they will never cast on camera.