Water

• Delaying emissions reductions now and having to deploy carbon removal at large scale in the coming decades could worsen water stress at the same time that water is already expected to become scarcer in some regions and seasons due to warming temperatures.
• Water for DAC is a significant cost by 2050, with the machines using 35% of the water currently used in global electricity production.
• The world now has 60% less fresh water available than it did 50 years ago, while demand for food is forecast to rise by 50% in the next 30 years, driven in large part by the expansion of the middle class in Asia.
• By 2040, a total of 5.4 billion people - more than half of the world's projected population - will live in the 59 countries experiencing high or extreme water stress, including India and China.
• Mass loss caused by melt-water and crumbling ice from 2007 to 2017 aligned with the most extreme forecasts from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), which see the two ice sheets adding up to 40 centimeters to global oceans by 2100.
• With the global demand for electricity expected to increase significantly in the coming decades, the water demand in the power sector is expected to rise.
• Mass loss from 2007 to 2017 due to melt-water and crumbling ice aligned almost perfectly with the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change's (IPCC) most extreme forecasts, which see the two ice sheets adding up to 40 centimetres to global oceans by 2100.
• With a global population projected to reach nine billion by 2050 and freshwater resources under threat from climate change, pollution, salinization, and depletion, producing more food using less water is critical to human survival.
• The demand for water from the private sector is expected to drastically increase in coming decades - especially in agriculture, manufacturing, and energy production and distribution - whilst reliable water resources are under threat from pollution, overexploitation and climate change.
• Continued, widespread melting of glaciers during the coming century will lead to floods, water shortages for millions of people, and sea level rise threatening and destroying coastal communities and habitats.
• Already fragile, water security in the Pacific will be weakened further by the impacts of climate change, with rainfall forecast to become less reliable over coming decades.
• Baku has recently announced a number of measures aimed at ameliorating the water shortages, including an Action Plan for 2020-2022 on ensuring efficient use of water resources approved in July.
• The global demand for fresh water will exceed supply by 40% in 2030, and water will be astressed resource, and it seems likely that many cities will be constantly in a state of water shortage.
• At current growth rates, global annual waste generation would increase by 70% by 2050, while critical resources from minerals to clean water are being depleted at unsustainable rates.
• Around 1.5 billion people live in river basins where the demand of fresh water exceeds the natural recharge level and by 2030 the global water demand will exceed current sustainable supplies by 40%.
• By 2025, about 66% of the total population of the world live in water - stressed regions as a result of over use of water and climate change.
• Progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 6 on access to clean water and sanitation for all before 2030 is worryingly off-track, bringing to light the challenges facing the water sector worldwide.
• Around the world, billions of people struggle to find clean drinking water at least one month a year, and projections suggest that demands for water in some parts of the U.S. - including California, which struggles with droughts - will outpace supply by about 2050.
• The European Central Bank has already identified water stress among the physical climate risks it may require financial institutions to manage and disclose, while APRA has also called on Australian companies to keep a closer eye on the risks posed by climate change.
• Considering when a vital resource is in short supply, people will fight for it, provision of water to 2050 will be very likely played against a social background of competition and probably conflict if nothing will be done to prevent a water crisis.
• The Trust Protocol will support US cotton growers in meeting 2025 sustainable growing goals - that include a 13% decrease in land use, a 50% cut in soil loss, an 18% decline in water use, a 15% decline in energy use, a 39% cut in greenhouse gas emissions and a 30% increase in soil carbon.
• Countries around the globe are facing a shortage of water for living, a crisis that could continue on in the decade.
• India is facing its worst water crisis in history and that demand for potable water will outstrip supply by 2030 if steps are not taken.

Last updated: 04 October 2020