Excellencies, colleagues and friends,
My thanks to the COP29 Presidency for launching the Baku Dialogue on Water for Climate Action to strengthen the water dimension within the global climate agenda.
This dialogue is a welcome step forward. The triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature, biodiversity and land loss, and pollution and waste is disrupting the water cycle, polluting water and making this precious resource ever more scarce.
Nearly three billion people face water scarcity. Over 90 per cent of disasters are water-related, including drought, desertification, fires and floods. UNEP, as the custodian agency reporting and monitoring on three SDG 6 indicators, has found that half of all countries reporting have one or more types of freshwater-related ecosystems in a state of degradation.
Crops and livestock are wasting away in dry spells. Competition between sectors – agriculture, urban supplies and industry – is growing. Cities are slowly sinking as the groundwater is depleted beneath them.
As climate change intensifies, and it is intensifying, thins will only get worse. Everyone will suffer. The SDGs and the goals of other multilateral agreements, including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, will become impossible to meet.
So, in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), nations must promise to cut 42 per cent off greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 57 per cent by 2035. This is how we get on a pathway way to 1.5°C. And they must dramatically increase adaptation financing to deal with the impacts that are already here.
Action on water and the freshwater ecosystems that provide it must be part of these efforts. To achieve the long-term sustainability and resilience of water resources for people and planet, this action must include integrated water resource management to fully address environmental and climate perspectives together.
Countries are stepping up. The 2023 Water Conference saw many Member States request support for scaled up action on water. The sixth UN Environment Assembly passed a resolution on strengthening water policies, also asking for scaled up action on Integrated Water Resources Management. Over 90 per cent of NDCs and National Adaptation Plans have a prominent water component. One hundred and nineteen countries have submitted their national biodiversity targets, which are precursors to National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans. Freshwater-related work for biodiversity and climate action is included in the UN System-Wide Strategy on Water and Sanitation.
But the hard truth is that these commitments are not being matched by the required finance, action or integrated approaches.
To move faster, we require a dramatic shift from sectoral thinking to an economy-wide approach across the entire water cycle. Linking national water resources management processes to biodiversity, climate and development action plans is essential.
We need a clear action agenda that aligns with institutional commitments and investment, involving all sectors and voices – particularly from those communities and individuals that are disproportionately affected by water scarcity and ecosystem degradation.
Current flows for Nature-based Solutions, an essential part of the water agenda, are one third of the levels needed to achieve climate, biodiversity and land degradation targets by 2030. So, governments must catalyze investments in water.
They can do this through greater certainty in policies to protect, conserve and restore freshwater ecosystems. Through efforts to manage water demand more effectively and equitably and improve cost-recovery to enable continuous maintenance and investments.
Through reorienting policy tools such as pricing, regulations, procurement, grants and loans. Through shifting the roles of institutions, such as public development banks, water utilities and state-owned enterprises.
Through tariff and subsidy structures that incentivize water conservation while supporting the poor. Through accounting for the economic value of water and freshwater ecosystems, estimated at over US$50 trillion annually.
Friends, the Baku Dialogue on Water for Climate Action is a chance to get moving across this packed agenda. UNEP is pleased to host this initiative and ready to place nature and the human rights to a healthy environment and access to water and sanitation at the heart of this dynamic collaborative approach.
Earth is a blue planet. Water is our most valuable resource, more precious than all the gems and metals in the world. We must protect it.
