South Asian climate talks stall over shared rivers

Delegates agreed that droughts are longer and that flood peaks arrive with less warning. They did not agree on who stores the water in a good year.

Shared rivers make polite communiqués difficult. Each capital can point to a gauge on its own bank. Each farmer can point to a field that was a field last decade and a channel this one.

A draft paragraph on data sharing survived the week. A paragraph on joint reservoirs did not. Officials called this progress. Hydrologists called it the same week as last year.

For readers in the delta the dispute is not abstract. Silt, salinity and a late rain already rewrite the planting calendar. Diplomacy that cannot name a cubic metre will not change that calendar.