Water and Rio: The Connecting Thread

Dr. Ania Grobicki, GWP Executive Secretary, writes from Brussels, attending the European Economic and Social Committee Civil Society Consultation: On the road to Rio–how should 27 voices speak with one voice?

While many speakers from the European trade unions and NGOs voiced their disillusionment with the financial crisis, the growing inequality gap, and the destruction of the planet since 1992, Brice Lalonde, the Executive Coordinator of the Rio+20 conference, struck an altogether more upbeat note. He made a few points which I paraphrase here:

We need to push governments to do more, to address the gaps: what still needs to be implemented from Rio in 1992?

What has remained the same? A focus on development as well as the environment, and a focus on institutions. The Rio process is unique because of its long-term generational perspective.

What has changed since 1992? The emergence of the BRICs, and millions lifted out of poverty. We now need to reduce the footprint of the richest billion. And we need a special nexus around water (my emphasis), a special focus over the next 15 years. This is one of the threads to pull which connects everything else in the green economy.

Brice concluded by saying that the Rio process represents a return of optimism, a return of engagement.

Water Musings

Adam Greenberg of SustainUS was part of the Water Group of YOUNGO (the youth major group) at COP17. He participated in GWP’s press briefing and we invited him to contribute to our blog given his passion for one of the most important issues facing the planet.

Of all the daunting climate challenges facing the world today, the global water crisis is among the most dire. As the IPCC has acknowledged, water is the primary medium through which climate change impacts will be felt by humans and the environment. Water issues affect every sector, government, industry, and group. Yet, somehow, water represents the biggest gap in international environmental policy.

We are in the midst of the “Water for Life” Decade declared by the United Nations, which establishes Africa as a region of priority. We, the youth, hoped to take advantage of COP 17, in a country that has been ravaged by water woes, to take concrete and proactive measures to address global water issues around the world.

In preparation for COP 17, youth from around the world came together online to establish the YOUNGO Water working group. Our group is run and operated entirely by young people from across the globe, who have targeted water as an issue of critical priority. We have dedicated ourselves to tackling these challenges, and also to raising awareness of water issues internationally and establishing water as a priority within climate policy. We are the first and only official platform within the youth constituency to the UNFCCC that deals with water.

In Durban, we established the first and only official position on water for YOUNGO and the youth, but we’re not stopping there. We are committed to becoming major players in the global water movement.

During the COP, we raised awareness about water issues, undertook actions and campaigns—such as “Don’t leave COP thirsty” and “Where’s the Water in the COP?” We generated high levels of media coverage, including on national television networks of multiple countries. We worked and networked with water allies such as the Global Water Partnership (GWP) and African Ministerial Conference on Water (AMCOW), and had a representative of our water group sit on the High Level Panel on Water. We made ourselves visible and ensured our presence was felt throughout the conference, making certain that the voice of youth on water issues was one of the loudest voices of all.

It is clear that water demands a dedicated dialogue within the climate negotiations. Anything less is absurd, the height of short-sightedness and irresponsibility. The youth, as inheritors of this planet, will not accept this. Our survival is at stake.

People, especially at the UN, often tell us, as young people, that we will be the ones to solve climate change. I often reply, “Only if you give us a chance.” As far as water issues go, the case is clear. We will have a chance if we recognize and begin to tackle these issues now, if we take serious action preemptively instead of reacting when it is too late. It’s a given; these are issues we’ll be dealing with our entire lives. That much we cannot change. We can, however, control whether we fight a losing battle, or one with a possibility to succeed.

In Durban, we had great success as a group. We did a good job, but our work is not finished. Climate change is the most critical challenge humanity has ever known, and water issues are where these impacts are felt most. Water issues will continue to remain the biggest social and environmental challenge on the planet. We intend to be at the forefront of these issues, developing and contributing to innovative, practical, sustainable, and just solutions these issues. This is our planet, too. This is our future. We intend to save it.

Linking Water, Climate and Development at COP 17

Dr Ania Grobicki, H.E. Rhoda Peace Tumusiime, Mr Anders Berntell and Mr Carlos Rodriguez at COP 17

A blog from Durban by Dr. Ania Grobicki, GWP Executive Secretary:

In African countries the impacts of climate change are being primarily felt through water. There are posters outside the conference venue designed by the host, the South African Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs, proclaiming: “More Climate Change Means Less Water” …. “More Climate Change Means More Floods” … “More Climate Change Means More Droughts”…

This is Africa’s reality. Always the continent with the greatest climatic variability, with irregular rainy seasons and prone to droughts which parch the land, everyone with a link to the African soil knows how precious water is here.

After two years of advocacy on water issues, and strenuous lobbying by some African countries as well as many others (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Bolivia, Mexico, to name a few) water is slowly seeping into the consciousness of the climate delegates here and it is being discussed in a range of groups and committees. It comes into discussions on the Nairobi Work Programme (as the UNFCCC recently published a major report from the NWP entitled “Freshwater Resources and Climate Change”) as well as the Adaptation Framework, National Adaptation Plans, the SBSTA, the SBI and the Committee on Loss and Damages.

On Saturday December 3, 2011, the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) in conjunction with the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the Department of Water Affairs(DWA) South Africa and the Global Water Partnership (GWP) arranged an all-day event on Water, Climate and Development in the River Room at the African Pavilion.

The outcomes of the Water, Climate and Development Day were taken forward to a High Level Panel on 6 December which featured a number of Ministers together with Richard Kinley, the Deputy Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, who firmly stated that opportunities to integrate water explicitly into the climate negotiations are growing.

Water is seen as something which unites both the developing and the developed countries. Kinley encouraged the water community to return to the climate negotiations next year with even stronger and more detailed recommendations. Speaking with one voice, a remarkable degree of unanimity among the speakers and the various calls for action has resulted in some clear and succinct messages:

• AMCOW and the African Union are the institutions that have committed to push policy-making which prioritizes water management and adaptation measures to deal with the scarcity of water in Africa.

• COP 17 must result in decisions that will salvage the injustices concerning women, children and other vulnerable groups affected by extreme climate events and water scarcity. The youth through the YOUNGO water group are now impatiently pushing for action on water issues.

• Investments in water management, especially to ensure better hydrological data and information, must be prioritized – together with investments in water infrastructure in Africa.

• Water is not a sector, it is a resource. Certainly, drinking water supply is a sector. However, addressing water systematically within the climate change negotioations means tackling complexities related to a wide range of issues relating to floods, droughts, food insecurity, land degradation, energy generation and natural ecosystems. Water is about both adaptation and mitigation. It needs to be emphasized that the success of most mitigation interventions as determined by the UNFCCC rest upon the availability and sustainability of water resources.

• COP 17 must follow up to implement references to water resources in Paragraph 14 of the Cancun Adaptation Framework which calls on ‘Parties to put in place adaptation programmes on water resources…’

• There is an obligation to push the water issue deeper into the agenda of UNFCCC as it is already part of Article 4 e of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

• The Nairobi Work Programme should be strengthened and used to establish a Thematic Focus on Water Resources Management following on the report on “Freshwater Resources and Climate Change” under the NWP which was published by UNFCCC in 2011.

• The Green Climate Fund should be established with a thematic funding window for integrated water resources management as it relates to climate change adaptation and mitigation.

• The African Green Fund (to be set up by the African Development Bank) should also include a dedicated thematic funding window for integrated water resources management as it relates to climate change adaptation and mitigation.

• There is now an agreement by the climate negotiators to hold a technical workshop on water under SBSTA before the next COP meeting. The water community needs to be ready for the challenge, to work closely with partners and stakeholders in agriculture, in the cities, in the energy sector, in forestry and in the environmental groups, to address systematically the complexities of both adaptation and mitigation.

Moving from water vulnerability to water security must become a key focus for climate action at all levels, from local to national to global, in our rapidly changing world.

Integration, Policy Coherence, Implementation

GWP Executive Secretary Dr. Ania Grobicki reflects on the Bonn 2011 Conference on the Water-Energy-Food Security Nexus. 

At Bonn 2011 (November 16-18), there was a lot of new vocabulary on display, as well as some genuinely new thinking – and a great deal of energy! Some strong messages will be taken through to the Rio+20 conference, articulated in the opening plenary of the conference by Sha Zukang, Secretary-General for Rio+20, and Under Secretary-General of the UN for Economic and Social Affairs. He emphasized that the Rio conference will be about integration, about policy coherence, and about implementation.

At the closing of the conference, the representative of the Brazilian government, Volney Zavardi, also stressed that sustainable development must be co-ordinated in an integrated way, and that all countries must benefit from the agreement in Rio. The main goal will be to accelerate access to water, food and energy for those at the “bottom of the pyramid”. Hence the concept of the Water-Energy-Food Security Nexus is aligned with the aspirations of the Rio+20 conference. He reminded the audience that despite the global financial crisis, there should not be a “recession” of political will. He criticized the current institutional framework for sustainable development as poor and ineffective; he identified the overlapping and duplication taking place within the UN system, and pledged that Rio would find a new model for engagement with civil society. Above all, he said, the green economy must be inclusive, and we all need to contribute to building an adequate institutional framework for truly sustainable development.

It’s about integration: the audience on the opening day were addressed as “integrated thinkers” by Johan Rockström of SEI, who demonstrated the urgency of taking an integrated approach because of the planetary boundaries which are already being breached. The current geological era has been termed the “anthropocene” – humans are overwhelming the great forces of nature, and themselves becoming a geological force.

At the same time the human challenges are huge: more than 1 billion people are hungry, just under 1 billion still do not have access to clean water, 2.6 billion have no secure access to sanitation, and 1.5 billion do not have access to a sustainable energy source. The Water-Food-Energy nexus is an integrated reality which plays itself out in the lives of poor people – and the nexus approach needs to focus on the needs of the poor.

At the policy level, the message of integration needs to resonate with decision-makers. Securing energy for governments make this an essential avenue for international negotiations. The food price shocks of the last two years has put food security at the top of the agenda for many countries. Yet energy security and food security will continue to be elusive without an integrated focus on the water resources which support them.

It’s about policy coherence: Competition over scarce land and water resources is placing constraints on economic development in many areas, especially in densely-populated Asian countries. However, as one of the speakers put it, we are in a “trilemma”: it is difficult for any person working in one of the sectors to understand the complexity in the others – this hampers policy development and implementation across the Water-Energy-Food nexus partly because of the lack of the right vocabulary. How to make progress at this point?

Al Duda of the GEF advocates building capacity and trust by involving ministries and stakeholders in a diagnostic analysis which looks at the complex issues and breaks them down into understandable components. This needs to be followed by a visioning process which produces a strategic action programme of commitments, developing new policies and establishing adaptive management through existing institutions. GEF has a great deal of experience in making Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) operational in hydrological units. The nexus is IWRM that needs to be applied on a hydrological unit basis, drawing in the other sectors. He pointed out that 80% of countries are now making some headway in IWRM, it’s not time to change direction because things are too complex, it’s time to press on with cross-sectoral action.

It’s about implementation: there is now a call to convert the MDGs after 2015 to long-term Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including energy access for all, access to water supply and sanitation security for all, food security for all. But how on earth can these goals be achieved within the world system’s constraints? Some foresee a leveling off of economic growth in developed countries, increasing growth in the poorest countries, and managing continued growth in the middle-income countries. However, the key is to decouple economic growth from resource consumption. We have plenty of evidence that Europe’s economic growth has continued over the last twenty years despite a decrease in total water withdrawals over that time. There needs to be smart investment and knowledge-intensive innovation worldwide, finding new solutions. We need more crop and kilowatt per drop!

Both new and existing plans and commitments to integrated approaches need to be funded and implemented. GWP’s Chair, Letitia A. Obeng, will be taking forward the outcomes of the Bonn conference as an official “Outcomes Ambassador”. She reminded the audience in the closing plenary that the IWRM status report which is being prepared for Rio+20 (to be published in February 2012) shows that while 80% of countries have made some progress towards integrated approaches, two-thirds of countries have prepared IWRM plans, while one-third are implementing them strongly. We must ensure that these integrated approaches continue to be implemented. The representative from the US State Department, Ertharin Cousin, put it like this: what is needed is to incentivize integrated management, in order to get action for change.

Overall the Bonn 2011 conference has shown that in order to support our population of 7 billion and rising, a planetary transformation is needed. It is time not for incremental changes, but for a major shift in the global economy. The German government wants to see a social compact for global change coming out of Rio+20. The bold words and bold vision set out at Bonn 2011 must now be matched by bold actions on the part of all stakeholders in the process.

No Alternative to IWRM

Dr. Thalmeinerova, Knowledge Management Officer for GWP, shares her thoughts on the Seventh “Environment for Europe” Ministerial Conference:

As I walked the spacious corridors of the Palace of Independence in Astana, Kazakhstan, it didn’t take long before I ran into about a dozen ministers of the environment from Europe and Central Asia. Since I am a water manager, this conference gave me hope that the ecosystem leg of the Dublin principles on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), adopted nearly 20 years ago, would not be forgotten. The main agenda item of the 54 ministerial delegations (together with international organizations, NGOs, the private sector, and civil society groups), was about water.

Water is a vital part of the environment and a home for many forms of life on which we humans ultimately depend. But the consequences of many countries’ economic growth is polluted fresh and marine waters, depletion of groundwater, loss of wetlands, increased water borne diseases, and land degradation. This is a self-inflicted water crisis in which the available water within a region is less than the region’s demand.

It’s no wonder that ministers of the environment discussed water together with economic growth that must be done in a green way. (The Astana Conference motto was “Save Water, Grow Green.”) Fortunately, more than 700 participants agreed that “growth first, clean up later” is not sustainable and, at the end of day, it brings enormous economic cost and harms development. I think politicians of Europe and Central Asia are beginning to understand that wiser water resources management is more than a new fashion to behave environmentally friendly. Water resources management is about development.

In the Ministerial Declaration, ministers agreed to make a substantive contribution to the discussions on the green economy within the context of sustainable development and poverty alleviation at Rio+20. In addition, 19 countries committed under the Astana Water Action to implement concrete projects leading to sustainable development. And most of them fall under Integrated Water Resources Management! Almost all presentations highlighted the importance of an integrated approach, whether delegates spoke about sanitation or wetland protection or hydropower generation or flood protection. Also, IWRM was recognized as the primary tool to address climate change mitigation, food security and poverty eradication. Simply put: no one to date has come up with anything better than IWRM as a process to deal with sustainable development.

I’m sorry that the Astana Water Action document does not define deadlines for its ambitious actions so it will be difficult to monitor how the “water friendly” atmosphere of Astana will be implemented. My second regret is that finance ministers did not take part. So it is up to countries’ delegations to win approval of their Conference commitments in their cabinet rooms and parliaments.

Some argue that ministerial conferences should be phased out. But if we take the Aral Sea as an example, it was recognized that only through international and regional cooperation can such tragedies be avoided. Jan Kubiš, Executive Secretary of UNECE, said in his keynote that the root causes of the problems lie in the policy environment, resource allocation, and country capacity. He noted that the main value of the UNECE Water Convention is its requirement for a holistic view. He stressed the Convention’s role as a conflict prevention instrument in Central Asia and other regions.

This was the first time the UNECE Conference was held in Central Asia, a good signal, noted Dr. Michael Scoullos, Chair of GWP Mediterranean, that Central Asia is moving toward environmental protection.

Also, the establishment of a shared environmental information system was discussed and tested in the Second Assessment of transboundary rivers, lakes and ground waters (UNECE, July 2011). The proposed Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) is an integrated, web-based system to create networks of public information.

The Ministerial Declaration gave a clear mandate to the European Environmental Agency to facilitate and administer the SEIS.  In addition, the declaration recommended that an Environmental Information System be established at the global level. It’ll be a challenge, but maybe it’s something that Rio+20 can deliver.

Who Gets the Water?

The second day of the Ministerial Conference started with chilly, rainy and cold weather, but the atmosphere in the conference hall was pleasant, almost family-like. I expected a lot of emotions and disputes because it is the first time that environment ministers are talking about water. It is said that in the countries of Central Asia, only water ministers—understood as “water and agriculture management”—are competent to speak about water.

The second interesting feature is that the West is meeting the East to discuss the same problems from different perspectives. The reform of water policy in the EU region has led to harmonization of water related legislation in Europe while water reforms in Central Asia resulted in a divergence of legal and institutional regimes across five Central Asian countries.

The morning session was “Sustainable management of water and water related ecosystems.” Three ministers of environment (from Belarus, Moldova and Hungary) addressed issues of water management and a need to enhance legal and institutional frameworks of water resources management. An important point was made by the Romanian minister: that many pressures on water resources and their quality are due to other sectors such as agriculture. However, the keynote address of Central Asian representatives focused more on the importance of water (its quantity and quality) for agriculture and energy production rather than highlighting water’s eco-system value for maintaining a healthy environment.

NGOs and IGOs are able to share experiences with official ministerial delegations.  Sascha Gabizon, representing more than 20 environmental NGOs, pointed out that especially weak progress has been made regarding access to safe water and adequate sanitation for vulnerable populations and those living in rural and remote areas in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Dr. Letitia A. Obeng, Chair of GWP, raised the question of an integrated approach (IWRM) as a development tool to help address fragmented sectoral planning and implementation processes. She underlined that policies and strategies must be developed taking into account the water related needs of all the sectors and that water is not only an environmental component, it is the crucial factor for socio-economic development and growth.

The GWP presentation also focused on planning processes, especially in light of efforts of many countries to develop adaptation strategies to climate change. Where governments have IWRM plans, they are well on the way to adapting to the changes that climate will bring. Bringing these and adaptation plans together will lead to better preparation and responses.

Although the Conference is half-way over, not much has been said about what policies are effective in addressing human and ecosystem health and adapting to extreme events and climate change. The intervention of Dr. Obeng was timely because she emphasized that if we fail to adequately plan and implement integrated approaches, we run the risk that sustainable management of water to serve development needs will remain illusive and financial investments will be wasted. At a same time, we run the risk that our adaptation responses may actually aggravate the problems and increase the vulnerability of communities rather than increase their resilience.

Dr. Thalmeinerova, Knowledge Management Officer for GWP, writing from Astana, Kazakhstan, at the Seventh “Environment for Europe” Ministerial Conference.

The Green Bridge

“How can we make green economy goals ‘more blue’?” asks Dr. Danka Thalmeinerova from Astana, Kazakhstan, at the Seventh “Environment for Europe” Ministerial Conference.

Rather than being “just another conference”, the Government of Kazakhstan came up with a challenging program called the “Green Bridge.” The main aim of the programme is to integrate plans—between countries of Europe and the Asia-Pacific region—for the transition from traditional economic models to those that include the concepts of green growth.

The Green Bridge initiative includes many fascinating concepts on how to make economic development greener. This seems to be ‘mission impossible.’ Although there are technologies that lower carbon emissions, and there are good practices to reduce agriculture pollution, a lot still needs to be done at the policy level. This ministerial conference is a good place to challenge governments to implement recommendations made by researchers, professional institutions and academia. This forum also makes a space for European and Asian representatives to explore where “bridging” is feasible. Less obvious is the implementation of this ambitious initiative; it requires proving that greener industrial, agriculture, and energy production actually brings value to the development interests of Asia. European countries (potential investors in Asia-Pacific) need to be convinced that a profit would not be lost when making green investments.

It is a good signal that the green economy (even if the definition is not universally agreed) is being discussed here alongside water issues. While the implications of “green” in fields such as energy, industry and transport are clear—and driving technological innovation and economic and environmental reform—the implications for the water domain are not as well recognized. A key policy challenge is to address how water can be managed in a more sustainable manner in its many different physical and social contexts to contribute to the development of green economies. In short, how can we make green economy goals ‘more blue’?

Dr. Thalmeinerova is the Knowledge Management Officer for GWP.

More information on GWP’s participation in the conference.