World Economic Forum: Time is Running Out for Water

The World Economic Forum concluded its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, yesterday where it placed a new emphasis on water. Here is my earlier post about the WEF's water efforts at this year's meeting.

On 24 January the WEF presented a panel "Time is Running Out for Water", featuring a number of CEOs. Here is a summary of the session (also pasted below), and you can view a webcast of the panel on You Tube or the WEF site; the panel video is about 65 minutes long. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon provides introductory remarks prior to the main panel discussion.

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Time is Running Out For Water

Ban Ki-moon • Peter Brabeck-Letmathe • E. Neville Isdell • Fred Krupp • Andrew N. Liveris
Moderated by • Ralph R. Peterson
Thursday 24 January 2008

Panellists in this session argued that global crises related to the escalating demand and inadequate supply of fresh water are as urgent as – yet more vexing and complicated than – efforts to tackle climate change. There is broad recognition today that water stress poses a risk to economic growth, human rights, health, safety and national security.

In Darfur, “fighting broke out between farmers and herders after the rains failed and water became scarce,” noted Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations, New York. In the ensuing fighting, 200,000 people died. Several million fled their homes. “But almost forgotten is the event that touched it off – drought, a shortage of life’s vital resource.”

Similarly, water from Lake Chad supports 30 million people, but the lake has shrunk to a tenth of its original size. Tributaries of the Amazon River have also dried up. Nor is the crisis limited to poor and developing countries. Water stress affects one-third of the United States and one-fifth of Spain. Atlanta, headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company, suffered the worst water scarcity in decades as reservoirs ran dry. “The challenge of securing safe and plentiful water for all,” warned the secretary-general, “is one of the most daunting challenges faced by the world today.”

Panellists agreed that no individual, firm or nation can escape the consequences of water scarcity. But they were sure that this challenge could be solved using collaborative approaches, political will, market mechanisms and innovative technology like those which arose in response to global warming.

“The solution to water is more complex than the solution to climate change,” declared Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Nestlé, Switzerland; Member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum.

Also, water is inextricably linked to the consequences of and responses to climate change. “They are interrelated,” observed E. Neville Isdell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Coca-Cola Company, USA. With more heat, global warming accelerates evaporation rates and rapidly alters rainfall patterns.

Meanwhile, efforts to extract more alternative energy sources like shale oil or biofuels only further speed the depletion of this resource through their requirement for water. It is also wasted because it has no economic value despite being the most precious and scarce resource of all, Brabeck-Letmathe added. “If we allow market forces to play a role in how to define the value of water, we could take a big step forward.”

Anticipating concerns that making water a commodity could potentially be used to exploit the thirsty poor, the panellists agreed that a certain amount of clean water for drinking should be seen as a human right. South Africa and Oman have fostered both novel and ancient ways respectively to provide this right. But water for farmers, industry, swimming pools or gardens needs to be priced to prevent waste and inefficiency.

Andrew N. Liveris, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dow Chemical Company, USA, recalled how technology, better pricing and collaboration brought efficiency not only to his firm but also to poor communities around the world: “Every CEO needs to understand how water has the power to liberate human rights,” he said. Market forces could work well under a cap-and-trade approach similar to those applied to carbon dioxide, agreed Fred Krupp, President, Environmental Defense, USA. “We saw a tragic ripping apart of the fabric of life when we took too much water out of rivers. Unless we put caps on the global warming pollution we’re throwing up into the atmosphere, we’re walking into a hell for water shortages.”

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It was refreshing to see the panelists agree that a certain amount of clean water is a human right and should not be commodified. Like them, I support the concept of water pricing, but the "lifeline concept" and a human right to enough water to survive are critical elements.

The panelists did not seem very innovative, something surprising for heavyweight CEOs. It also would have been nice to have some "different voices" on the panel - maybe someone from an NGO that is heavily invested in water in developing countries. Perhaps the panelists could have committed to realizing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to water and sanitation by earmarking some of the profits from bottled water (Nestle and Coca-Cola CEOs were on the panel) to the MDGs.

But the fact that the WEF decided to make water a major issue at its annual meeting is quite remarkable.

"There is enough water for human need, but nor for human greed." -- Mahatma Gandhi

Comments

[fchris]

The numbers describing San Diego’s drinking-water supply are oft-repeated: The city imports 90 percent of its water from the Colorado River and from Sierra Nevada runoff via a pipeline that transports water from the Sacramento River Delta to Southern California. A judge’s decision last summer to protect a small endangered fish, the delta smelt, will likely lead to a 30-percent reduction in San Diego’s water supply and compound problems caused by a decade-old drought that’s plagued much of the American West.
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fchris

[Michael]

Thanks for your comment.

I do not know where the exact quote is, but I found it in a speech by someone else at: www.water.tkk.fi/wr/caw2/hemila.html

[T. Kohli]

Hello:

Where did you get the quote from Gandhi:
"There is enough water for human need, but nor for human greed." -- Mahatma Gandhi

Can you provide a source for it?

Thanks

T. Kohli