UN calls for urgent action on global water resources

A harsh new warning has been issued by the United Nations about the urgency to protect the Earth’s water resources. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for immediate action to safeguard water resources and prevent conflicts.

Speaking at a three-day UN conference, Guterres warned that the world is not on track to meet its 2030 water goals, including access to safe drinking water and sanitation for all.

“[Water is] the most precious common good. [It] needs to be at the centre of the global political agenda. All of humanity’s hopes for the future depend, in some way, on charting a new science-based course to bring the water action agenda to life. Now is the time to act.”

The conference, which drew 10,000 participants, saw NGOs, governments, and the private sector offer nearly 700 commitments to address the issue. These pledges included the construction of toilets, the restoration of degraded rivers and wetlands, and the management of the Niger River basin in Africa, which touches nine nations and has seen violent conflicts over water.

However, Charles Iceland of the World Resources Institute think tank noted that less than a third of the commitments have funding and only about a third are going to have a substantial impact. Iceland called for annual conferences on water to address the global problem.

Stuart Orr of the World Wide Fund of Nature (WWF) praised the variety of institutions and organizations now talking about water. However, he cautioned that water resource problems will not improve on lip service alone, and action needs to be taken now.

“This issue is not going away. The water issue is only going to get worse. And I think that’s why everybody is starting to feel maybe now really is the time to get going. You hear a lot of pledges, but this feels somehow quite different. [It] is not all rosy, [but] a lot of the commitments that have been made this week are very good.”

In 2020, two billion people were still without safe drinking water and were consuming water contaminated with faeces. About 3.6 billion lacked access to safely managed sanitation services, with 2.3 billion lacking even basic sanitation services, and 494 million people worldwide having no access to a toilet. This leads to the spread of cholera, dysentery, and polio.

Guterres has been urged to appoint a UN special envoy for water to address the issue. He said…

“Water has no home here at the UN” without a dedicated agency or global treaty.”

Henk Ovink, water envoy of the Netherlands, which co-organized the conference called for the UN to appoint a special water envoy or create a dedicated agency or global treaty to address water resources issues.

According to the United Nations climate experts (IPCC), as droughts become more frequent and severe due to climate change, nearly half of the world’s population experiences “severe” water scarcity for at least part of the year.