17th December 2023
Treat water as a common good
“Governments must urgently stop subsidising the extraction and overuse of water through misdirected agricultural subsidies, and industries from mining to manufacturing must be made to overhaul their wasteful practices, according to the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. Nations must start to manage water as a global common good, because most countries are highly dependent on their neighbours for water supplies, and overuse, pollution and the climate crisis threaten water supplies globally.” (1)
“”However, water is not just a casualty but also a driver of the climate crisis,” reads the report. “Extreme water events cause an immediate loss of carbon uptake in nature. Droughts lead to fires and massive loss of biomass, carbon, and biodiversity. The loss of wetlands is depleting the planet’s greatest carbon store, while the drop in soil moisture is reducing the terrestrial and forest ecosystem’s ability to sequester carbon… We will fail on climate change if we fail on water,”” (2)
We forget how much water is used by mining and industry (17% of the world’s freshwater use) and by agriculture (70%) – whilst domestic/ municipal use accounts for 12%. By 2030 demand is likely to exceed supply by approximately 40%. This is clearly a problem, and as with so many cases of shortages, it is likely that the poorest in society and the poorest nations will bear the brunt of distress.
The matter is further compounded because the source of a water supply may lay outside the user’s borders. Water from the Swiss Alps, feeds the River Po in Italy; the glaciers in the Himalayas feed four great rivers – Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, and Tarim. Other countries rely on ‘green water’ where water held in the soil and released through transpiration from trees and other plants, then condenses and falls as rain further down wind. Changes in land use up wind – such as deforestation – can reduce rainfall. (2) Again this can make one country dependent on another for its water. This is one of the causes of the drought being experienced in the Amazon basin (3).
These cross border issues have the potential for conflict as is already the case in the West Bank (4)
The Global Commission on the Economics of Water recommends seven steps that policymakers must take to avoid a water shortage by the end of the decade, including:
- Manage water supplies as a common good by recognizing that water is critical to food security and all sustainable development goals;
- Mobilize multiple stakeholders—public, private, civil society, and local community—to scale up investments in water through new
modalities of public-private partnerships; - Cease underpricing water and target support for the poor;
- Phase out water and agriculture subsidies that “generate excessive water consumption and other environmentally damaging practices”;
- Establish Just Water Partnerships to enable investments in water access, resilience and sustainability in low- and middle-income countries;
- Move forward on steps that can be taken this decade to “move the needle significantly,” including fortifying depleted freshwater systems, recycling industrial and urban wastewater, reusing water in the production of critical materials, and shifting agricultural systems to include less water-intensive crops and drought-resistant farming; and
- Reshape multilateral governance of water by incorporating new water standards into trade agreements and prioritizing equality in water decision-making. (2)
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/17/global-fresh-water-demand-outstrip-supply-by-2030?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
- https://www.commondreams.org/news/water-report-un-conference
(3) https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/08/green-water-climate-change-deforestation/
The Green Tau 