As the world warms from human-caused climate change, fresh water for drinking, cooking and cleaning is becoming harder to get for many people. That’s because the warming world is leading to erratic rainfall patterns, extreme heat and periods of drought — on top of decades of bad water management and extractive policies around the world.
From Ancient Greek sailors boiling seawater to Romans using clay pipes to filter salt, making saltwater drinkable through desalination has a long history. But modern forms of this millennia-old technology are now the “present and future of coping with water scarcity,” said Manzoor Qadir, deputy director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.
The United Nations chief on Wednesday launched a five-point plan to jump-start broader use of renewable energies, hoping to revive world attention on climate change as the U.N.’s weather agency said greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat, sea-level rise, and ocean acidification reached record highs last year.
“We must end fossil fuel pollution and accelerate the renewable energy transition before we incinerate our only home,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “Time is running out.”
A new science report from the United Nations spells out in excruciating detail the pain of climate change to people and the planet with the idea — the hope really — that if leaders pay attention, some of the worst can be avoided or lessened.
One scientist calls it the “Your House is On Fire” report.
While these reports often can come across as depressing, to scientists and world leaders, the idea isn’t to lower people’s spirits.
Earth is getting so hot that temperatures in about a decade will probably blow past a level of warming that world leaders have sought to prevent, according to a report released Monday that the United Nations called a “code red for humanity.”
“It’s just guaranteed that it’s going to get worse,” said report co-author Linda Mearns, a senior climate scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research. “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”
More than 200 of the world’s leading climate scientists will begin meeting today to finalize a landmark report summarizing how Earth’s climate has already changed, and what humans can expect for the rest of the century.
The report is the sixth edition of an assessment of the latest climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body that coordinates research about global warming. The last edition of this report came out in 2013 — an eternity in the world of climate science, where the pace of both warming and research are steadily accelerating.
Billions of people don’t have clean drinking water, or anywhere sanitary to wash their hands. Half of the world’s malnutrition cases are caused by a lack of water, sanitation and hygiene. Flooding caused nearly $77 billion in economic losses worldwide between 2009 and 2019.
The United Nations said Wall Street’s new water futures risk an essential public good being treated like gold and oil, leaving the market vulnerable to a speculative bubble. CME Group Inc.’s new contract — which debuted this week — could lure interest from hedge funds and banks alongside farmers, factories and utilities looking to lock in prices, said Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation.
In the wake of heat waves, global warming, forest fires, storms, droughts and a rising number of hurricanes, the U.N. weather agency warned Tuesday that the number of people who need international humanitarian help could rise 50% by 2030 compared to the 108 million who needed it worldwide in 2018.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
