Thousands of negotiators have spent nearly a fortnight at a sprawling conference venue on the outskirts of the French capital trying to forge the world's first effective universal accord to curb global warming.
With the Friday deadline come and gone and the 195 nations still deeply divided, a third consecutive night of non-stop talks was scheduled -- turning the event into a test of physical endurance as much as diplomacy.
Their sustenance: caffeine, adrenaline, hope... and more caffeine.
"Coffee always helps. This is the only time when I drink coffee," said South African Maesela Kekana, a veteran negotiator to the annual United Nations climate talks, which are notorious for running into overtime.
"You can't survive without coffee. And we help each other. We bring each other coffee."
Guyanese Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman said on Friday afternoon he had just six hours' sleep over the previous two nights, but was not feeling too weary.
"There is a bit of adrenaline and a lot of coffee," Trotman told AFP, adding that the most powerful source of energy was feeling he may be part of making history if an accord is reached on Saturday.
"Hope and expectation are what drives you. And you draw strength from just seeing the delegates from other countries (feeling the same)."
Still, Trotman admitted he had seen some other delegates "nod off" in meetings.
Other negotiators could be seen lying on couches in the public areas of the halls with shoes off, eye-masks on, grabbing a precious hour or two of rest.
- Foggy minds -
Espen Ronneberg, 49, a negotiator for the Pacific island nation of Samoa and a veteran of 17 editions of the UN talks, said fatigue was having an impact on people's ability to think clearly.
"We're all tired and we've become much less diplomatic," Ronneberg said as he looked around the airport hangar-style halls housing the national delegation offices through eyes nearly closed with fatigue.
"Instead, we just go straight to the point. Some people don't even say: 'Hello' anymore, they just nod their heads."
Naomi Klein, a famous Canadian journalist and activist with observer status at the talks, said the endless negotiations favoured the most powerful nations with the biggest delegations that could share the workload.
"We can see the negotiators are not sleeping a lot. Really, their judgement is not that great. And small countries that have small delegations sleep even less, because they have less staff," she said.
Ronneberg said Samoa tried to rotate its forces to keep them fresh.
"We've been trying to send people home," he said, referring to hotels.
"But that's not working, because it takes around one hour for them to get there. So people are just basically sleeping in the offices."
Still, Djordjije Vulikic, part of a relatively small delegation with Montenegro, insisted the fatigue was not impacting his work.
"There is this suspense, you never know what will happen at the end. So you don't feel it now," Vulikic said -- although he added he had been dreaming about what he would do when an agreement was signed.
"I will spend an entire two days sleeping."
source: www.abs-cbnnews.com
