[FMAL-08] Australia, Cameroon, Japan
We did it, my friends! We got to the end of the first week! What a celebration. Let us revel in it by sleeping for twelve hours. This is a barely-there Bernard Soubry, and what you’re reading is Fondue, and Maybe a Lake. This is your eighth email.
SBSTTA Plenary. We are considering the first document, on agriculture and biodiversity. We have worked our way through to section five, paragraph 21, element one, paragraph 1.5. Peru is agreeing with Ghana and with Chile, who have suggested adding some words about soil biodiversity and eliminating negative subsidies.
Except Peru is speaking Spanish, and it’s clear that the interpreters are pretty tired this morning, because Hesiquio, the chair, keeps asking everyone to repeat themselves more slowly so that the Secretariat note-takers can write down stuff. I’m following in Spanish, but my team leader leans over to tell me that the interpreters are translating differently every time, which is bad if you’re making specific textual suggestions. Also, no one is quite sure what paragraph we’re talking about, because they all have to rely on the text on their own laptops, of which there are different translations, rather than on a common doc.
The current list of speakers is about fifteen countries long. “Just to remind everyone that we have to get through four documents by one o’clock,” Hesiquio says. “And it’s quarter to twelve. Australia, followed by Cameroon and Japan.”
Survey of the laptops ahead of me, from the back of the room: A woman in orange is checking out restaurants in Geneva, lingering on something that looks meaty and brown. A lot of people are on Whatsapp. The GIF game seems particularly strong. A solid quarter of the room is catching up on their emails. The delegate beside me is playing Wordle on her phone.
The chairs in the plenary are warm red leather, swivel-able but fixed-height, and with a back angle of about sixty degrees. Such that you’re never actually sitting straight as you type, and your hands are a bit too high, so I end up in this gnomic Glenn Gould position while I’m typing. Some people in the room probably have a different torso-leg proportion, and seem to be doing fine, but it’s a wonder that you don’t hear complaining about ergonomic injuries. Other delegates seem to be adapting to it by going into the full Jacob Rees-Mogg Slouch, just letting their body conform to the too-high desk and the leaned-back chair by melting into them like gruyère on a grilled cheese.
Also: the amount of shitty mask-wearing here is incredible. Yesterday I saw someone wearing a mask rotated a full ninety degrees from the intended position—the side flaps poking his chin and between his eyes. The Secretariat have been making almost hourly announcements reminding people to wear the damn things, including over your nose, yes. Not that mask-wearing is a sign of moral purity, but surely a bunch of UN diplomats would have gotten the mask thing two years in?
Last day of being a photographer: I think I’ll miss it. Wow, but does having a telephoto lens ever make you everybody’s friend. A 70-200mm zoom lens strapped to your chest makes most real-world folks look at you weird for swivelling around and sticking it in their face. Not delegates: this is their bread and butter. A good picture can last them five or six years’ worth of websites, conference profiles, reports to their ministers. Sure, they can submit statements to the secretariat that say I was here, but a well-placed pic on Twitter says and damn, I looked good.
Kind of nice to be the rainmaker for once. You never take photos of me, Chile pouts. I get surrounded by the Women’s Constituency for a photo-op with Costa Rica. Bernard! Bernard! Take a family photo! Last time I was here, the Bureau didn’t even know my name.
Still, it will be good to be a little bit more invisible. This week was a lot of setup. Next week, we write ourselves into corners and out of them. We actually negotiate. At some point, it’s going to be a question of time and money, and countries are going to show their teeth. Best not to be between them when it starts.
But first, a day off.
Sleepy sleep sleepy times,
B