From Circle of Blue (Brett Walton):
The Paris conference brought cheers not only from renewable energy advocates but from water groups. For years, organizations that focus on the world’s freshwater resources felt marginalized in the climate change debate. A warmer planet means nastier droughts, bigger floods, and unsettling perturbations in the water cycle, but the question of adaptation was mostly ignored by diplomats.
In Paris, that changed. Though the final text does not mention it by name, water was at the core of numerous debates and side agreements. Water advocates succeeded not by narrowing their agenda but by broadening it.
They did this in two ways. First, by targeting climate adaptation at the national level. Seventy-five percent of the national climate plans, or INDCs, which 186 countries submitted ahead of the conference, mentioned water adaptation. The detail in these plans varies tremendously, according to Melisa Cran of the French Water Partnership, but they do represent a starting point.
Second, water groups brought more parties to the table. Cities, non-governmental organizations, research institutes, utilities, and businesses pledged to address water as part of the “Agenda for Solutions,” a platform for promoting climate action outside of international politics.
The approach was a success. Water was discussed with greater depth and detail than at any previous UN climate conference.
“We were very happy that the topic of water became relatively serious in Paris,” Leon Awerbuch of the International Desalination Association, which helped advance an agreement to cut carbon emissions from desalination, told Circle of Blue.
The conference produced a number of notable agreements. More than 300 organizations signed the Paris Pact, to improve water management practices at the watershed level. Roughly $US 1 billion in funding for infrastructure projects has already been secured, according to Tales Resende Carvalho of the UNESCO-International Hydrological Program. Funds for adaptation could also flow to water projects from the Green Climate Fund, to which rich countries pledged at least $US 100 billion per year by 2020.
Twenty-seven large businesses agreed to measure and report water use, under an initiative called the Business Alliance for Water and Climate Change. The MegaCities Coalition, which represents 20 cities with 85 million people, will share data and best practices. The Global Clean Water Desalination Alliance aims to reduce carbon emissions from desalination, first by increasing the efficiency of membranes and power generation and eventually by a wholesale transition to renewable energy, Awerbuch explained. Without action, carbon emissions from desalination will increase nearly five-fold by 2040 because of the growth of thirsty seaside cities.
Altogether, the pledges made at Paris represent a significant step forward for water. Resende Carvalho said the importance is evident in the breadth of the negotiations.
“It goes without saying that given its cross-cutting nature and its important potential mitigation and adaptation aspect, water has found an important place among the measures provided under the INDCs and the ‘Agenda for Solutions’, Resende Carvalho told Circle of Blue.