Metering the Rain: What Geneva Keeps Refusing to Say

The compromise now circulating in Geneva's corridors — a guaranteed survival ration, metered charges above it — is being sold as pragmatism, and it may well be the least-bad line available this Friday. But pragmatism should not be allowed to skip the hard sentence. To meter water above a floor is to declare, in law, that comfort is for those who can pay and survival is for everyone else — and to hope no one notices where the floor is drawn. That is a moral choice dressed as an allocation formula, and Secretary-General Halvorsen came nearest to naming it when she warned the hall not to expect four thousand years of argument settled by week's end. The honest position is not that metering is wrong; a scarce liter unpriced is a liter wasted. The honest position is that the height of the floor is the whole ethics of the thing, and it is being negotiated by people who will never queue for it. Set it too low to spare the market, and the market will have set a price on thirst. Say that out loud, delegates, before you vote.