The State of Global Water Resources report released on Monday also highlights that over the last five years below-normal conditions for river flows have been recorded with less water reaching reservoirs.The reduction in supplies has reduced the amount of water available for communities, agriculture and ecosystems.
Currently, 3.6 billion people worldwide face inadequate access to water at least a month per year and this is expected to increase to more than five billion by 2050, according to UN Water.
The report also reveals that glaciers suffered the largest loss of mass ever registered in the last five decades. Every region in the world where glaciers are present reported ice loss.
The ice loss has produced more than 600 gigatonnes of water, much of which has ended up in the ocean as well as some riverways.
Meanwhile, 2023 was recorded as the hottest year on record, leading to elevated temperatures and widespread dry conditions, which contributed to prolonged droughts.
Unprecedented stress
“Water is the canary in the coalmine of climate change. We receive distress signals in the form of increasingly extreme rainfall, floods and droughts which wreak heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
The report also paints a stark picture of the world’s freshwater resources, highlighting unprecedented stress, exacerbated by climate change and increasing demand.
Climate change intensifies
A significant number of floods across the world are highlighted in the report.
The surge in extreme hydrological events has been influenced by naturally occurring climate conditions including the transition from La Niña to El Niño weather patterns in mid-2023 as well as human induced climate change.
“As a result of rising temperatures, the hydrological cycle has accelerated. It has also become more erratic and unpredictable, and we are facing growing problems of either too much or too little water,” Ms. Saulo explained.
Africa battered
Africa was the most impacted in terms of human casualties. In Libya, two dams collapsed due to the major flood in September 2023, claiming more than 11,000 lives and affecting 22 per cent of the population.
Floods also affected the Greater Horn of Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as Rwanda, Mozambique and Malawi.
Meanwhile, the southern United States, Central America, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Brazil were affected by widespread drought conditions, which led to the lowest water levels ever observed in the Amazon and in Lake Titicaca on the border of Bolivia and Peru.
Monitoring and data sharing
“Far too little is known about the true state of the world’s freshwater resources. We cannot manage what we do not measure,” Ms. Saulo stated.
“This report seeks to contribute to improved monitoring, data-sharing, cross-border collaboration and assessments. This is urgently needed,” she added.
WMO said the report seeks to enhance the accessibility and availability of observational data, through better monitoring and improved data sharing, particularly in the Global South.
Early warning
The report aligns with the focus of the UN’s global Early Warnings for All initiative in addressing water-related challenges.
The global effort aims to improve data quality and access for water-related hazard monitoring and forecasting, with the goal of providing Early Warning systems for all by 2027.
The WMO has emphasised the urgent need for action to address water-related challenges, calling for improved monitoring, data sharing and cross-border collaboration to better understand and manage global water resources.
March 22 marks World Water Day, which is a day meant to highlight the importance of fresh water for life on Earth. But this year, it comes as major cities across the world are running out of their supply, and a new United Nations report shows that if that problem continues to spread, so does the risk of global conflict.
Within just the past few weeks, two heavily populated cities in the world saw their taps run dry. In Mexico City, officials said at the beginning of March that they fear a “day zero” could be coming when their water system no long has enough water to supply its nearly 22 million residents. That day, they said, could come as soon as June 26, and last until September.
Many have already gone “days, if not weeks, without running water in their houses,” CBS News contributor Enrique Acevedo said.
It’s a problem also being felt in Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa. There, thousands of people have been lining up for whatever water they can get as extreme heat shrinks their reservoirs and decades of neglect have allowed infrastructure to crumble. Local officials have said that if conservation efforts are not escalated soon, they could face a total collapse of the water system.
Sicily is also facing diminishing supplies.
“There is no water,” Rosaria, a resident of Agrigento, told Reuters.
Another local, Antonio, told the outlet that it’s been a “long-standing issue.”
“Water in Agrigento is gold,” he said.
The issue appears to be escalating worldwide, and a new United Nations report published this week explains that if it does, so will global tensions at a time that are already proving difficult. “As water stress increases, so do the risks of local or regional conflict,” Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO said in a news release on Friday. “UNESCO’s message is clear: if we want to preserve peace, we must act swiftly not only to safeguard water resources but also to enhance regional and global cooperation in this area.”
What the report says
The 2024 World Water Development Report says that 2.2 billion people currently don’t have access to safely managed drinking water, and that as of 2022, about half of the entire global population experienced at least temporary severe water scarcity.
As global temperatures increase, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels, those numbers are expected to worsen, as higher temperatures will also bring more frequent and intense extreme weather events, including drought.
But climate change isn’t the only factor. The report says that freshwater consumption has been growing by just under 1% every year, with agriculture accounting for roughly 70% of freshwater withdrawals, and industrial and domestic uses accounting for 20% and 10%, respectively.
The U.N. has established a set of targets to ensure that water – a vital source of life on Earth – remains available. Those targets say that by 2030, there should be, among other things, universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water, adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene, reduced water pollution, and increased water-use efficiency.
But according to the World Water Day report, none of those targets “appear to be on track.”
“Four out of five people lacking at least basic drinking water services lived in rural areas. The situation with respect to safely managed sanitation remains dire, with 3.5 billion people lacking access to such services,” the report’s executive summary says. “Cities and municipalities have been unable to keep up with the accelerating growth of their urban populations.”
But it’s not just individual and communal well-being that is impacted by the problem. The U.N. says having safe, plentiful and affordable water resources is directly linked to global prosperity and peace. Water doesn’t “trigger” conflict, the report says, but recent events have seen civilian water infrastructure attacked and unrest itself has sparked issues with vulnerable groups getting access to water supplies.
“Water nurtures prosperity by meeting basic human needs, supporting health and livelihoods, underpinning food and energy security, and defending environmental integrity and economic development,” the report says.
Women and girls are those immediately impacted by water shortages, as these demographics are often relied upon for gathering whatever supply they can. This can occupy several hours a day, and in many cases, means less time in school and potentially, putting them more at-risk of safety issues.
In Somalia last year, for example, an estimated 43,000 people died from the nation’s longest drought on record, half of them being children. That happened amid ongoing battles with al Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab. In Gaza, officials have said that the conflict with Israel has also weakened water supplies.
It’s not just cities on other continents. The story has also started to unfold in the U.S., with the Colorado River serving as a prime example of what could come. Many reservoirs served by the Colorado River faced serious shortages last year, emptying reservoirs and further complicating where dwindling supplies should be allocated – a war that broke out into several battles between states, sectors and communities.
“The saying is: whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting and that old adage is getting to become more and more of a realization as we move forward here,” Bob Brachtenback, who lives on a Colorado farm, told CBS Colorado in December.
The U.N. report makes clear that the relationship between conflict and basic human needs is complex, but nonetheless linked. What it boils down to, they signify, is that if the world does not rapidly work to address dwindling water resources, global issues regarding wars, agriculture, migration and other aspects that allow humanity to prosper, will only intensify.
NEW YORK (AP) — Microplastics have been found in the ocean and the air, in our food and water. They have been found in a wide range of body tissues, including the heart, liver, kidneys and even testicles.
But are they actually harming you?
Evidence suggests they might, but it’s limited in scope. Some researchers are worried, but acknowledge there are lots of unanswered questions.
Dr. Marya Zlatnik, a San Francisco-based obstetrician who has studied environmental toxins and pregnancy, has seen studies raising concerns about microplastics’ impact on the health of babies and adults.
But it’s a young research field, and it’s not something she generally discusses with patients.
“I’m not entirely sure what to say yet,” Zlatnik said.
Here’s a look at what’s known so far:
WHAT ARE MICROPLASTICS?
Plastics are man-made materials — many of them derived from oil or other petroleum products. They can break down into smaller particles, through exposure to heat and weather and even animal digestion.
These minuscule plastics have been detected in air, water and soil, in milk, and in bottled and tap drinking water. They also have been found in a variety of foods, including salt, sugar, honey, rice and seafood.
ARE THERE MICROPLASTICS IN YOU?
Most likely yes.
There is scientific debate about how much people inhale and ingest, and it can vary on what they eat and drink and where they live, researchers say.
Some Australian researchers, on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund, calculated in 2019 that many people each week consume roughly 5 grams of plastic from common food and beverages — the equivalent of a credit card. That estimate is not universally embraced by researchers, but is commonly mentioned in news articles.
Researchers are still trying to understand exposure levels, but study after study is finding signs of plastics in body tissues.
“Microplastics have been measured in pretty much all of the body tissues that have been evaluated,” said Tracey Woodruff, a University of California at San Francisco researcher. Scientists have even reported finding them in the penis, in ovaries and in placentas.
WILL MICROPLASTICS HURT YOU?
That’s still being sorted out.
A 2022 World Health Organization report concluded there was no clear risk to human health, based on the available evidence.
There’s also not an obvious signal of widespread public health impact, at least in terms of mortality. Cancer, heart disease and stroke death rates have been falling, not rising.
But researchers only started measuring plastics in the human body — and trying to assess the health effects — in recent years. Some of that work is only coming to fruition now.
It makes sense that microplastics are harmful because they contain toxic chemicals, said Woodruff, who was part of a team that reviewed nearly 2,000 studies about microplastics at the request of California legislators. It may be, for example, that microplastics play a role in rising occurrences of some cancers in younger people, she said.
Available information indicates plastics can spark inflammation and cause other problematic changes in the body that can, for example, raise the risk of heart attack and stroke.
A small study in the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this year suggested, but did not prove, that patients with evidence of plastics in their arteries were at greater risk of death from heart attacks and strokes. But an expert not involved in the research suggested the study may have overstated any effects.
“Even though there’s a lot we still don’t know about microplastic particles and the harm they cause to humans, the information that is available today is in my mind very concerning,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, of Boston College.
WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT MICROPLASTICS?
There are ways to reduce potential microplastics exposure, researchers say.
Take your shoes off before you go in the house, to avoid tracking in plastics-laden dust (not to mention germs, dirt and other debris) throughout your home.
Eat foods — especially fresh fruits and vegetables — that you prepare in the home.
Don’t microwave a meal in a plastic tray, no matter what TV dinner instructions might say, Woodruff said.
And opt for reusable stainless steel or glass water bottles, rather than disposable plastic ones, she added.
Zlatnik, the obstetrician, noted that families with limited incomes may have bigger things to worry about.
“If someone is worried about where their next meal is going to come from, I’m not going to give them advice to keep their leftovers in glass containers and to not microwave in plastic,” she said.
When Jaime Ross, PhD, a neuroscientist and assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy, decided to study how contaminating the drinking water of mice with tiny fragments of plastic might affect their cognitive function, she didn’t expect the experiment to yield much.
But in just three weeks, Ross and her team found microplastics had made their way into the mice’s brains, passing the robust defenses of the blood-brain barrier. The researchers performed a variety of tests and found that the microplastic-exposed mice started exhibiting signs of cognitive decline similar to dementia.
“I didn’t really think we were going to see anything,” Ross says. But when they examined the mice’s tissues, they were shocked. “Every one we looked at we found the microplastics. It was surprising, especially finding them in the brain. Things are not supposed to go there!”
Despite these findings, experts say that little is known and understood about what impact these microplastics have on human health. A few studies have drawn associations between microplastics and poor health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease and low male fertility. And chemicals often found in plastics are known to cause a variety of health problems, including cancers, metabolic disorders, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and fertility issues.
But most of the studies raising alarm have been in labs or in animal models that don’t give a complete picture of the effect on humans, says Mary Margaret Johnson, MD, PhD, a principal research scientist of environmental health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
“I do think there needs to be more funding devoted to researching how it really is impacting our organs and disease itself,” she says.
What are microplastics?
Though plastics have become ubiquitous in modern life, they weren’t invented until the mid-1800s and weren’t produced on a large scale until the 1950s. Over the past century, technology to create a huge variety of malleable polymers (chains of large, repeating molecules) has evolved into the umbrella term plastics, which are often derived from petroleum and other fossil fuels, according to the Science History Institute in Philadelphia.
Plastics are used in most containers and packaging materials; in most of the fabrics that make clothing, bedding, carpeting, and towels; in the construction of buildings and motor vehicles; and in many of the materials used in health care settings to prevent the spread of infection, among many other uses.
The production of plastics worldwide has doubled in the last two decades, according to Our World in Data. Plastic’s versatility, durability, and low weight-to-strength ratio have made it an efficient material for many of life’s modern conveniences. However, by their nature, plastics can break down and degrade into smaller pieces. At the same time, scientists have found that plastic materials can exist for decades, if not longer, without completely disintegrating.
Scientists have studied the impact of plastic on the ecological environment for decades and have raised concerns about the health effects of some chemicals used in plastics. But it’s only within the last several years that researchers have discovered the extent to which microplastics (which range from 1 nanometer, 1/80,000 the width of a strand of hair, to 5 millimeters, the size of a pencil-top eraser) and nanoplastics (which are even smaller and invisible) have become embedded in the environment and in human bodies, explains Tracey Woodruff, PhD, MPH, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and director of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine.
Woodruff, who has studied the effect of some chemicals found in plastics on human health, reproduction, and development for two decades, first started looking into microplastics in 2021. She and a group of scientists from across the University of California system reviewed hundreds of existing studies on microplastics and health and compiled a report for state lawmakers to consider during policymaking. Though mostly based on animal studies, Woodruff and her colleagues concluded that there was evidence that microplastics could harm fertility and increase cancer risk in humans.
“Governments have not really fully figured out what they’re going to do about this,” Woodruff says. There have been some efforts to ban the use of plastic microbeads in cosmetics, but not much beyond that, she adds.
Red flags for human health
While there haven’t yet been any definitive studies showing that microplastics cause health problems in humans, researchers have identified several red flags that call for further investigation.
In Ross’ research in mice, for example, the scientists used plastic particles that were “clean,” meaning that they did not have any of the known toxic chemicals found in many plastics and they were also free of bacteria and viruses that microplastics can pick up from environmental exposure. And yet, with the mere presence of the microplastics, the mice began to experience negative effects. This could be because the immune system recognizes the presence of a foreign invader and triggers inflammation, which can have a negative effect on a range of organs.
“We just wanted to see the effect of plastic itself, but that’s not what is really in the environment,” Ross says. “Plastics in the environment are not this way; they’re not pristine.”
Ross’ work has raised even more questions about microplastics in the body.
“We’re trying to understand: How are they getting into the brain? What do they do? Where do they go? Do they get out?” she says.
Sheela Sathyanarayana, MD, MPH, a professor in the University of Washington Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, worries that the harm from microplastics in the body could be compounded by what are known as endocrine disrupting chemicals that are found in many plastics.
Bisphenol A (BPA), phthalates, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are just a few of the chemicals known to imitate hormones and disrupt the body’s natural endocrine system, which is responsible for making the hormones that govern processes such as growth and development, metabolism, appetite, mood, and certain aspects of reproduction.
Sathyanarayana has focused her research on studying the impact of exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals on reproduction and has found that they can have a profound impact, especially during fetal development.
“That’s when organ development is happening; that’s when programming for later life happens,” Sathyanarayana says. “Whatever happens during pregnancy will affect your later life and health for the whole continuum.”
She gave the example of research that found some women who experience famine while pregnant later have babies who experience obesity, likely because of the effect their mothers’ starvation has on the development of the babies’ metabolism.
Woodruff also raises the concern that rising rates of younger people diagnosed with colon cancer and other cancers related to the gastrointestinal tract could be linked to ingested plastics and other chemicals.
“I always recommend to people, try to reduce your plastic exposure as much as possible,” Sathyanarayana says.
Reducing plastic in the world and at home
Because plastics are in almost every part of modern life, it’s extremely difficult to eliminate exposures, Sathyanarayana acknowledges, but she has found ways to reduce her own.
She carries a stainless-steel water bottle and avoids plastic water bottles. She doesn’t microwave food in plastic containers and only uses glass, wood, or metal kitchen items, including mixing bowls, spoons, cutting boards, and food storage containers.
In her home, Sathyanarayana also takes her shoes off to avoid tracking in dust from the outside and uses a HEPA filter to capture particles from the air.
The Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at UCSF offers additional tips to help minimize exposure to toxic chemicals, like those sometimes found in microplastics.
But Sathyanarayana admits there are some things that are tough to relinquish. For example, though most of her clothes are made of non-plastic cotton and wool, some of her clothes are made of plastic fibers, like the spandex, polyester, and nylon in her activewear.
“The reality is we can’t avoid plastics,” she says. “No one can.”
That’s why the bulk of the responsibility for reducing microplastics exposure is on governments and manufacturers, Woodruff says. For example, regulatory bodies could require washing machines to include filters that catch microplastics coming from clothing. Or even better, clothing manufacturers could use less plastic, she says.
But there’s still a lot of research and discussion that needs to happen to help policymakers understand the best way forward, Ross says.
“I don’t want to demonize plastics; they’re quite important,” Ross says, adding that they have been lifesaving in health care settings. “But do we really need our vegetables wrapped in plastic at the grocery store? Let’s have a conversation about what we really need plastic for.”
This is the question we are not only asked frequently at restaurants, but we also ask ourselves every time we reach for a glass of water. Subconsciously, the answer is almost always bottled.
It’s a good time to think about water as October 18 marks the 52nd anniversary of the 1972 Clean Water Act in the U.S, which largely came about because of the very first Earth Day in 1970, when 20 million people across the United States marched, demanding clean air and clean water.
While not everyone has access to clean drinking tap water from a tap – what’s shocking is that for many of us that do – we still prefer plastic bottled water. Why? Because tap water is losing the PR war with plastic bottled water.
Consider this terrible truth – producing one billion plastic bottles requires 24 million gallons of oil, and given that a staggering 79 percent of all the plastic ever made remains in polluting landfill sites around the world, why are we asking for our water to be served to us this way?
Plastics PR Coup
The public’s perception of plastic bottles as ‘better’ than tap water has been shaped by clever marketing campaigns. Brands like FIJI and Smartwater lure the public with their appealing names and promises of purity. Consequently, about 39 percent of participants in a recent Harvard study thought bottled water was superior to tap.
But, that’s not always a fair comparison. This March 2024, the FDA recalled over 78,000 cases of Fiji, due to the presence of three strains of bacteria and elevated manganese levels. This was followed in April when the FDA issued a second bottled drinking water recall, this time for a brand called “Waiakea Hawaiian Volcanic Water’. While neither contaminants were considered life threatening and the Fufi Water recall was eventually downgraded to a Class III category recall – both cases illustrate that bottled water is not immune to issues. However the one that is perhaps most worrying is around plastics getting into bottle water.
One concerning study revealed that the average liter of bottled water can contain up to 240,000 tiny pieces of plastic, 90 percent of the plastics they found were so tiny that they were classified as nanoplastics. These particles are even smaller than microplastics, which are typically visible to the eye and roughly the size of a grain of rice. When microplastics break down further, they form nanoplastics, measuring less than 1 µm in size. This tiny size allows them to penetrate the body’s cells and tissues.
Recent research has found microplastics in human blood, feces, and major organs. The health implications of these plastics are rapidly emerging with evidence suggesting associations with serious human health issues, including cell death and the decrease of immunity.
How can you avoid drinking plastic particles and plastic related chemicals ? Where possible opt for tap water because according to research from 2022 by the National Institute of Health (NIC), in Bethesda, Maryland, tap water in the US at least contains less plastic contaminants than bottled water.
The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for regulating tap water in the United States, and monitors for 90 known contaminants in tap water.
In San Francisco, a city that provides one of the best water qualities in the U.S, tap water is tested more than 10,000 times before being distributed. In April, 2024, the EPA announced new rules known as the National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (NPDWR), which covers six per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) which are chemicals that resist grease, oil, water, and heat and are commonly used in plastic products. The EPA is anticipating that the new ruling will “prevent PFAS exposure in drinking water for approximately 100 million people, prevent thousands of deaths, and reduce tens of thousands of serious PFAS-attributable illnesses”.
In addition, the EPA announced $1 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help states implement rigorous PFAS testing and treatment at public water systems and to help owners of private wells address PFAS contamination.
There have been cases of tap water being deemed dangerous, albeit not from plastics. For example in 2014 in Flint, Michigan, the local authority switched their municipal water supply source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. This corroded water distribution pipes, which then leached lead directly into tap water. But hopefully instances like this are rare.
Bottled water meanwhile is monitored for safety and reliability by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA manages bottled water as a food product, which means that bottled water does not have to be tested by certified laboratoriesfor quality testing or for reporting test results.
More Positives for Tap Water
The other added benefit of tap water is that much of it is fluoridated. Fluoride is added at low levels because it’s been shown to harden the enamel layer of teeth which builds up our resistance to tooth decay.
Tap water is significantly more economical than single-use plastic bottled water. Consumers who regularly buy bottled water pay approximately 3,000 percent more than those who drink tap water. Although costs can vary by household, the average annual water bill is around $300, translating to about a penny per gallon, while bottled water costs about $1.44 per gallon.
What’s more, an estimated 20 million metric tons of plastic end up in our environment annually- polluting the soil and our precious water table and ultimately and ironically, ourselves.
Reject the Bottle and Embrace the Tap
However, public skepticism over tap water persits which is helping to drive the ever expanding $46 billion U.S bottled water market, making it one of the fastest-growing industries in the world today.
We are so habitually used to having a plastic bottle of water ready and in our grasp, that it is easy to forget about good old tap water.
Psychologically, humans rely on two systems to motivate behavior; system 1 is responsible for making immediate decisions, while system 2 is about making analytical decisions. It is hard to switch to the latter system, because it requires more thinking and much more reasoning. So, when faced with the option of bottled or tap water, humans will tend to pick the one they are most familiar with, which is increasingly plastic bottled water. Even though it’s much more expensive, it is destroying the planet and poisoning our bodies with plastic particles and chemicals.
Let’s face it: switching to tap water isn’t just a matter of convenience; it requires us to break free from our ingrained habits. To make a meaningful change, we must learn to actively engage System 2 when it comes to our water choices. By consciously allowing our values to guide us, we can opt for tap water and help mitigate the waste and pollution associated with single-use plastic bottles, paving the way for a cleaner, healthier environment for future generations.
To help protect our communities from plastic buildup, and inform policymakers on plastic pollution and its underlying causes, consider donating to the EARTHDAY.ORG campaign to End Plastics. By uncovering the systematic problems within plastic use, including the misinformation regarding tap water, we can make a difference for our planet – and our own health, because every plastic water bottle sold is one more bottle too much.
The report summarises scientific findings over the last five years which raise the alarm about ocean warming, coral bleaching, shifting marine species distributions, sea ice loss, sea level rise and extreme weather events.[1] Also highlighting a recent study, the report warns that the oceans’ ability to absorb carbon dioxide may no longer be able to keep pace with human emissions.[2] All these changes have come at huge cost to the oceans themselves, and with profound consequences for billions of people worldwide.
Chris Thorne, Campaigner for Greenpeace UK, Protect the Oceans campaign said: “We must urgently take action and safeguard our best ally in the fight against climate change, by drastically reducing emissions, and by protecting 30% of the world’s ocean by 2030. The ocean supports all life on this planet, but as the climate crisis accelerates, the ocean’s ability to protect against its worst impacts, sustain coastal communities and support marine ecosystems is being damaged at an unprecedented scale.”
While the ocean and climate crises are worsening, governments have been dragging their feet on measures to effectively protect the oceans. To this day, less than 1% of the high seas – the largest habitat on Earth, comprising 64% of the world’s ocean – is fully or highly protected from human activities.
Chris Thorne added: “The Global Ocean Treaty can play a pivotal role in strengthening ocean resilience. It is the only tool we have that can protect 30% of the world’s ocean by 2030, in a network of ocean sanctuaries. Governments need to stop dragging their heels, sign it into law and get on with delivering their promise of protecting the ocean, before it’s too late”.
Alongside drastically reducing carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement as a matter of urgency, governments must ratify the Global Ocean Treaty, agreed upon by all governments in 2022, by the UN Ocean Conference, taking place in Nice, France, in June 2025.
At least 60 countries must ratify the Global Ocean Treaty by the UN Ocean Conference of the Parties (COP) in June 2025 for the agreement to enter into force 120 days later. After ratification, governments must continue to prioritise ocean protection through rapid and effective implementation of the Treaty.
[1] Key facts from the report include:
Warming ocean waters mean the ocean is 1–2% less oxygenated than in the 1970s.
The Arctic sea ice minimum extent in 2024 was the seventh-lowest on satellite record, and the 18 lowest annual minima have all occurred in the last 18 years.
A global mass bleaching event began in 2023 – the second in 10 years – and by July 2024, 73% of the world’s corals had been exposed to enough heat to begin bleaching.
So-called “once in a century” extreme sea level events are predicted to be 20–30 times more frequent, exposing one billion people to their effects.
Sea levels are 21 cm higher than they were in 1900, and projected future ice loss from polar ice sheets and from glaciers in mountainous regions means that larger increases are expected by 2100 even under the lowest emissions scenario
[2] The ocean is the greatest carbon sink on Earth, holding more than 50 times the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The absorption of carbon dioxide by the ocean has so far provided a buffer against even more extreme impacts from the climate crisis, but this has come at a huge cost to the ocean. Ocean warming, acidification and deoxygenation are causing the health of the ocean to drastically deteriorate. The ocean’s key role in the carbon cycle is therefore being compromised.
Using too much water could wipe trillions of dollars off the world economy by 2050 and destabilise dry regions such as the Middle East, according to a report that says people should be charged more for using it.
A commission including the President of Singapore, the founder of Egypt‘s Bibliotheca Alexandrina and ministers and economists warned of a “crisis of water” fuelled by climate change and overconsumption. The panel’s executive director Henk Ovink told The National that “we are undermining our future”.
The Middle East is one region where water scarcity is “top of the agenda” because “nobody needs more instability”, said Mr Ovink, a former water envoy for the Dutch government. “In a fragile social and geopolitical context, any vectors of disaster – floods, drought, pollution, biodiversity loss – are literally trembling the foundations.”
The commission forecasts that water shortages could knock 8 per cent off the developed world’s GDP and 15 per cent off that of developing countries by 2050, amounting to a loss of trillions of dollars. By comparison, the world economy contracted by about 3.5 per cent in 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Drawing on two years of work, the report warns that water shortages could put half the world’s food production at risk in the next 25 years. It says the average person needs 4,000 litres of water a day to live a dignified life, taking into account what is needed to produce food and energy.
Parts of the Middle East, Africa and Europe would already be living in water scarcity but for the “green water” stored in nature, the report says. It says that even in socially and economically stable parts of the Middle East, any water shortages could spill over into more vulnerable areas.
Shortages are driven not only by “profligate use” of water in settings such as data centres and coal-fired power plants, but also by damage to soils and forests that results in less rain being stored by nature and ultimately recycled back into lakes and rivers, the commission says.
“Water is not just a victim in this cycle,” Singapore’s President Tharman Shanmugaratnam told a media briefing. “The degradation of the wetlands, the mismanagement of the soil, the deforestation, is all contributing to a loss of the world’s stores of carbon and is accelerating climate change.”
Price of water
A key recommendation of the report is that water should be priced at a level that “reflects the true opportunity cost and scarcity” of the Earth’s resources. It says the “widespread under-pricing of water today encourages its profligate use across the economy”.
The world must find ways to “ensure that rapidly growing digitalisation and the proliferation of AI do not consume an inordinate share of water” in water-hungry settings such as data centres, the report says. It says any policy could include subsidies for poor households and encourage the “prudent use” of water.
The report, entitled The Economics of Water, is billed as water’s equivalent of the influential 2006 Stern Report, which was one of the first to make the economic case for climate action. The author, the former UK Treasury official Lord Nicholas Stern, wrote that the benefits of going green “far outweigh the economic costs of not acting”.
Better water management “goes beyond ‘just put a cap on water use and we’ll fix the problem’. It’s way more complex,” Mr Ovink said. “You can say, ‘let’s use a little bit less water’. Who should use a little bit less water? The poor and the most vulnerable use hardly any water.
“You have to distinguish where usage matters. Perhaps more important is the source of water. It is our biodiversity, it is our environment and land use planning, and economic incentives and objectives that determine the vulnerability of that source of fresh water.
“The good thing is that with sustainable land use management, resource recovery, sustainable water use, reuse and recycling, making sure that biodiversity loss is curbed and starting to restore our biodiversity and maintaining it, we actually are ticking many boxes.”
Five missions
The report calls for five overarching “missions” to bring about “radical changes” in how water is managed. One of the commission’s co-chairs is the Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato, whose work similarly inspired the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmerto adopt five missions for his new Labour government.
The missions are to embark on a “revolution in food systems” that preserves soil and saves water; protect natural habitats; get more supplies from wastewater treatment; make sure modern tech does not “exacerbate global water stresses”; and prevent children dying because of unsafe water by 2030.
“We must move beyond a reactive market-fixing approach towards a proactive market-shaping one that catalyses mission-orientated innovation,” Ms Mazzucato said. “Only with a new economic mindset can governments value, govern and finance water in a way that drives the transformation we need.”
The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared to side with the City of San Francisco in its unusual challenge of federal water regulations that it said were too vague and could be interpreted too strictly.
The outcome could have sweeping implications for curtailing water pollution offshore and would deal another blow to the Environmental Protection Agency, which has faced a string of losses at the court over its efforts to protect the environment.
The case has given rise to unusual alliances, with the city joining oil companies and business groups in siding against the E.P.A. In arguments on Wednesday, it was the conservative justices who seemed the most aligned with a city best known as a liberal bastion.
At its core, the case is about human waste and how San Francisco disposes of it — specifically, whether the Clean Water Act of 1972 allowed the E.P.A. to impose generic prohibitions on wastewater released into the Pacific Ocean and to penalize the city.
Almost from the start, the justices appeared to wrestle with what was actually at stake in over an hour of highly technical arguments that centered on sewage discharge permits issued by the agency.
Justice Clarence Thomas asked, “With this permit, what is at bottom the problem?”
Tara M. Steeley, a deputy San Francisco city attorney, replied, “What at bottom is the problem is that permit holders don’t know what they need to do to comply.”
She added that city officials do not have clear guidance about how to comply with a federal permit aimed at determining how much wastewater can be released without running afoul of the Clean Water Act.
Under the current E.P.A. requirements, she said, San Francisco is “exposed to crushing criminal and civil penalties even when it otherwise complies with its 300-page permit.”
She estimated that the city faced $10 billion in penalties from the federal government over the issue.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor appeared skeptical of the city’s arguments. She focused on the practical matter of how much feces should be permitted to be released into the ocean.
“I’m sorry, no one’s asking you to shift on a dime,” Justice Sotomayor said. “What they’re asking you to do is to become responsible for doing what’s necessary, not on a dime, but — nothing in the E.P.A. works on a dime — but to take the steps necessary to control situations that develop.”
But Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh appeared receptive to the city’s concerns, expressing skepticism toward the arguments raised by Frederick Liu, an assistant to the solicitor general, who contended that the E.P.A. does have the power to issue broad guidelines.
Justice Kavanaugh questioned whether the federal government was going after San Francisco “based on the past when they didn’t know what the relevant limitation on them was and seek retroactively, without fair notice, huge penalties, including criminal punishment” based on unclear standards.
Mr. Liu accused San Francisco of failing to provide the federal government with detailed information about its sewage system.
“Without that information, we’re basically flying blind as to how we’re going to tell exactly what San Francisco should do to protect water quality,” he said.
The case poses another test of federal agency power and will be the first chance for the court to address the effect of its landmark decision last term overruling the Chevron precedent.
For decades, courts had relied on the precedent, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which held that courts should defer to federal agencies and their expertise when interpreting ambiguous laws.
Still, the case heard Wednesday, San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 23-753, is a departure from more recent challenges to the E.P.A. brought by attorneys general in Republican-led states that directly seek to curtail the agency’s power.
Instead, San Francisco sued the E.P.A. during the Trump administration, and officials have pushed back on the idea that the case is a challenge to the federal government’s ability to regulate the environment. Its challenge, the city says, aims to clarify the provisions of the city’s wastewater permit so that San Francisco can comply with the Clean Water Act.
Humanity has thrown the global water cycle off balance “for the first time in human history,” fueling a growing water disaster that will wreak havoc on economies, food production and lives, according to a landmark new report.
Decades of destructive land use and water mismanagement have collided with the human-caused climate crisis to put “unprecedented stress” on the global water cycle,said the report published Wednesday by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, a group of international leaders and experts.
The water cycle refers to the complex system by which water moves around the Earth. Water evaporates from the ground — including from lakes, rivers and plants — and rises into the atmosphere, forming large riversof water vaporable to travel long distances, before cooling, condensing and eventually falling back to the ground as rain or snow.
The consequences will be even more catastrophic without urgent action. The water crisis threatens more than 50% of global food production and risks shaving an average of 8% off countries’ GDPs by 2050, with much higher losses of up to 15% projected in low-income countries, the report found.
“For the first time in human history, we are pushing the global water cycle out of balance,” said Johan Rockström, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water and a report author. “Precipitation, the source of all freshwater, can no longer be relied upon.”
The report differentiates between “blue water,” the liquid water in lakes, rivers and aquifers, and “green water,” the moisture stored in soils and plants.
While the supply of green water has long been overlooked, it is just as important to the water cycle, the report says, as it returns to the atmosphere when plants release water vapor, generating about half of all rainfall over land.
Disruptions to the water cycle are “deeply intertwined” with climate change, the report found.
A stable supply of green water is vital for supporting vegetation that can store planet-heating carbon. But the damage humans inflict, including destroying wetlands and tearing down forests, is depleting these carbon sinks and accelerating global warming. In turn, climate change-fueled heat is drying out landscapes, reducing moisture and increasing fire risk.
The crisis is made more urgent by the huge need for water. The report calculates that, on average, people need a minimum of about 4,000 liters (just over 1,000 gallons)a day to lead a “dignified life,” far above the 50 to 100 liters the United Nations says is needed for basic needs, and more than most regions will be able to provide from local sources.
Richard Allan, a climate science professor at Reading University, England, said the report “paints a grim picture of human-caused disruption to the global water cycle, the most precious natural resource that ultimately sustains our livelihoods.”
Human activities “are altering the fabric of our land and the air above which is warming the climate, intensifying both wet and dry extremes, and sending wind and rainfall patterns out of kilter,” added Allan, who was not involved in the report.
The crisis can only be addressed through better management of natural resources and massive cuts in planet-heating pollution, he told CNN.
The report’s authors say world governments must recognize the water cycle as a “common good” and address it collectively. Countries are dependent on each other, not only through lakes and rivers that span borders, but also because of water in the atmosphere, which can travel huge distances — meaning decisions made in one country can disrupt rainfall in another.
The report calls for a “fundamental regearing of where water sits in economies,” including better pricing to discourage wastefulness and the tendency to plant water-thirsty cropsand facilities, such as data centers, in water-stressed regions.
“The global water crisis is a tragedy but is also an opportunity to transform the economics of water,” said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization and a co-chair of the commission that published the report. Valuing water properly is essential, she added, “so as to recognize its scarcity and the many benefits it delivers.”
The world has a worsening water crisis, and half of all food production will be at risk of failure by the middle of this century.
That’s the worrying message from a major international study released Wednesday.
Half of the world’s population already faces water scarcity, and that proportion is growing, too, according to the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, which is funded by the Dutch government and facilitated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — a group of the world’s richest economies.
While water scarcity will have a seismic effect on humans and the environment, it will also have an economic impact. The Global Commission on the Economics of Water estimates that a lack of clean water due to climate change and the chronic mismanagement of land could cut global economic growth by 8% on average, almost double the losses in lower-income countries.
“The global water crisis is a tragedy but is also an opportunity to transform the economics of water — and to start by valuing water properly so as to recognize its scarcity,” a co-chair of the commission, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Organization, said in a statement.
With nearly 3 billion people living in areas experiencing unstable water trends and several cities sinking because of the loss of belowground water, densely populated areas such as northwestern India, northeastern China, and southern and eastern Europe will bear the brunt of global water mismanagement, the report says.
Part of the problem is a lack of collective will among governments and businesses, as well as market forces that treat water like a commodity, Mariana Mazzucato, a professor and founding director of the University College London Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, told NBC News.
“We can do it. We’ve just chosen not to because we have inertia, because we have profits being made from not dealing with the crisis. Some 80% of wastewater isn’t recycled,” Mazzucato said.
“Like many problems, including climate change, biodiversity and health pandemics, we can turn those problems into massive opportunities for investment,” she added.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the government of the Netherlands set up the water economics research body in 2022, with Dutch lawmakers giving it enough funding to operate for two years and deliver this week’s report, which will be its last. The OECD says it wants to explore continuing the commission’s work in collaboration with other organizations.
One glaring absence from the world’s response the release highlights is the lack of any coordinated approach to dealing with water crises. Last year, the United Nations held its first water conference in 50 years, and only last month did it appoint a special envoy on water.
“The global water crisis is a ticking time bomb. If we do not tackle it now, the cost of inaction will be felt by us all,” Tim Wainwright, U.K. chief executive of the international nongovernmental organization WaterAid, said in a statement. “Tackling this crisis requires government leadership, finance and the coordination of donors, private sector and affected communities worldwide to drive the crucial action needed.”
Among the report’s recommendations are transforming how water is used in farming — improving efficiency and shifting from animal-based diets — as well as restoring natural habitats and treating and renewing more wastewater.
Even so, a lack of public funds’ being devoted to water issues around the world will do little to solve the problem. Governments “can’t even react to the symptoms of the water problem, let alone solve the problems if they’re being fiscally strangled,” said Mazzucato, of University College London.
The impact of climate change appears frequently in the report, with water systems being the first to show the impact of changing weather patterns. In recent years, the Amazon has experienced more droughts, mountain glaciers have melted, and Europe has suffered more floods.
Parts of the U.S. have felt increasing pressure on their water systems, with droughts, floods and aging infrastructure affecting farming and leaving some areas with a lack of clean drinking water. North Carolina experienced its own water crisis in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which washed away parts of its infrastructure.
Last year, extreme precipitation — most likely made worse by climate change — hammered nearly every corner of the U.S. For every degree Fahrenheit of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 3% to 4% more moisture. With global temperatures 2.43 degrees higher last year than in preindustrial times, today’s storms can deliver a stronger punch.
In September last year, New York City got 7 inches of rain in 24 hours, submerging buses and shuttering rail travel.
GET WET! 