Thanks to some forensic detective work by one of my admin team, we have a brilliant place to stay here in Rio. It’s on the 11th floor in a block of flats overlooking the conference centre, with a view to the hills behind and every morning this week the sun has risen amidst flames of reds, oranges and yellows. There’s a dawn chorus too. Over the noise of the generators and the traffic, southern lapwings squawk from the flat roof of the centre, and tropical kingbirds squeal while chasing each other through the tree tops below us.
As for the conference itself, there’s a saying that a week is a long time in politics and it seems a day is quite a long time here in Rio. Monday was such a day.
You’ll be forgiven for being unaware of the finer points of international negotiations, but when the Rio conference started the UN, whose conference it is, were in charge. Last Friday, that all changed and the hosts, the Brazilians, took over. No doubt frustrated by the lack of progress, and anxious that the meeting shouldn’t be seen to fail, they ramped up the pace.
In fact they drove it so fast on Monday, that by the time the evening rolled around some nations were complaining that nothing was agreed, an agreement wouldn't be reached in time and that the heads of state who arrived today would have nothing to sign. The mood was low.
Negotiations went on well into the early hours. By the time most of us emerged yesterday morning, it was a new dawn - overnight the Brazilians had produced a revised text. In the plenary session later in the morning all the governments confirmed they would agree. By the end of play, a text had indeed been agreed, calm had descended, and sleep-deprived negotiators were thinking of early nights.
But, it’s not over yet. The heads of state arrived today to decide.