Needed for Paris Climate Talks: Handwarmers, Sleeping Bag, Stamina
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Version 0 of 1. When packing to cover the Paris climate talks, I brought the standard reporter gear: laptop, iPhone, backup chargers, dozens of notebooks and pens, comfortable shoes. But also: a backpack, sleeping bag, handwarmers, and a case of Clif bars. I know from experience that covering the United Nations climate change negotiations can be the most physically grueling work you can do in a suit. During the 2009 Copenhagen climate change talks — held in December in a city on the edge of the Arctic Circle — the security lines were so long and slow that people stood outside the venue for up to eight hours on some days, waiting to get in (thus the handwarmers). Attendees in Paris feared similar waits in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks. But in a welcome surprise, the security lines here have been swift, efficient and friendly. There is evidence of beefed-up security, but it’s not overwhelming. Once inside, reporting often requires athletic prowess. Tracking key negotiators as they are coming and going from private meetings — inevitably at opposite ends of a vast convention center — means regular sprints from one end corner to the other of a stadium-size venue to catch your subjects for fresh quotes and updates Inevitably the talks go into overtime. Much like college students and the United States Congress, United Nations negotiators are notorious for leaving everything to the last minute. Officially, the two-week Paris negotiating session is scheduled to conclude on the afternoon of Friday, Dec. 11. In the 23 years that the organization has held annual climate summits, they have not once concluded on time. Invariably, negotiators spend two weeks sketching up the outlines of a deal, but only start the serious brinkmanship — with high stakes, lines that can’t be crossed and wild cards thrown into the mix — once the clock runs down on the last official day. And once the climate talks go into overtime, they do not stop. The diplomats keep negotiating through the night, the morning, the next day, the next night, the next morning until they finish or concede failure. That means the reporters who cover the negotiators stay too. After all, at any moment — say, 6 a.m. after 70 straight hours of negotiating — they could walk out with an announcement of a deal, or of failure. Either way, that moment is the biggest news story of the entire event, and a reporter covering it needs to be outside the rooms where the talks are happening, night after day after night. During the overnight sessions, there may be time for catnaps — but only at the risk of missing news. Once the talks head into overtime, the food venues in the centers often shut down (thus the Clif bars), and the temperature goes down, too. Most giant convention centers turn the heat down overnight, (although I’ve also been told that this is done to help keep negotiators awake). Either way, in December in Paris, this is the moment for the not-at-all glamorous sleeping bag. (At least there will be toilets this year. At the Lima, Peru, summit last year, held in a temporary compound of tents at the Peruvian military headquarters, workers started trucking away the porta-potties after the talks went into overtime.) There can be some journalistic benefits to this process. At those talks in Lima, negotiators worked on Friday night through about 3 a.m. and then announced a 4-hour break. Bleary and delirious delegates staggered out of their meetings, many too exhausted to avoid reporters, and those of us who had been lying in wait were able to elicit punchy and candid quotes from typically cautious and reticent delegates. Is it possible that this method is not the best for forging sweeping — and complicated — legal deals designed to save the planet and reshape the global economy? This time President François Hollande of France has demanded that negotiators agree on a near-final working text by the first weekend of the talks so that they will have a conclusive deal in time for the scheduled Friday closing ceremony. But the French government has quietly booked the convention center through the weekend after the talks are supposed to close. |