‘Vampiric’ water use leading to ‘imminent’ global crisis, UN warns

NEW YORK - Humanity’s “lifeblood” – water – is increasingly at risk around the world due to “vampiric overconsumption and overdevelopment”, the United Nations warned in a report, ahead of a summit on the issue set to begin on Wednesday.

The world is “blindly travelling a dangerous path” as “unsustainable water use, pollution and unchecked global warming are draining humanity’s lifeblood”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a foreword to the report, released hours ahead of the

first major UN meeting on water resources

in nearly half a century.

Co-hosted by the governments of Tajikistan and the Netherlands, the UN Water Conference will gather 6,500 participants, including a hundred ministers and a dozen heads of state and government, from Wednesday to Friday in New York.

Mr Richard Connor, lead author of the report, told the Agence France-Presse news agency that the impact of the “world water crisis” will be a “matter of scenarios”.

“If nothing is done, it will be a business-as-usual scenario – it will keep on being between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of the population of the world that does not have access to sanitation, and roughly 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the world will not have access to safe water supply.”

With the global population increasing every day, “in absolute numbers, there will be more and more people that don’t have access to these services”, he said.

At the UN conference, governments and actors in the public and private sectors are invited to present proposals for a so-called water action agenda to reverse that trend and help meet the development goal, set in 2015, of ensuring “access to water and sanitation for all by 2030”.

The last conference at this high level on the issue, which lacks a global treaty or a dedicated UN agency, was held in 1977 in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

Some observers have already voiced concerns about the scope of these commitments and the availability of funding to implement them.

“There is much to do, and time is not on our side,” said Mr Gilbert Houngbo, chairman of UN-Water, a forum for coordinating work on the topic.

The report, published by UN-Water and Unesco, warns that “scarcity is becoming endemic” due to overconsumption and pollution, while global warming will increase seasonal water shortages in both areas with abundant water, and those already strained.

“About 10 per cent of the world’s population lives in a country where water stress has reached a high or critical level,” the report said.

According to the most recent UN climate report, published on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “roughly half of the world’s population currently experience severe water scarcity for at least part of the year”.

Those shortages have the most significant impact on the poor, said Mr Connor.

“No matter where you are, if you are rich enough, you will manage to get water,” he said.

The report noted the particular impact of existing water supplies becoming contaminated due to underperforming or non-existent sanitation systems.

“At least two billion people (globally) use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces, putting them at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio,” it said.

That high number does not even take into account pollution from pharmaceuticals, chemicals, pesticides, microplastics and nanomaterials.

To ensure access to safe drinking water for all by 2030, current levels of investment would have to be tripled, the report said.

Freshwater ecosystems – which, in addition to water, provide life-sustaining economic resources and help combat global warming – “are among the most threatened in the world”, the report warned.

“We have to act now because water insecurity is undermining food security, health security, energy security or urban development and societal issues,” said Mr Henk Ovink, the Dutch special envoy for water.

“It is now or never, as we say – a once in a generation opportunity.” AFP