Staff Reporter
THE Minister of Agriculture, Water, and Land Reform, speaking at the Cairo Water Week, has said that the immediate impact of climate change is predominantly on the water cycle with 90% of the impacts of climate change are water-related, and the water cycle is already thrown out of balance.
He added that sub-Saharan Africans are in a water crisis and that mitigation, which concentrates on energy transformation, is not sufficient to survive the climate crisis.
Schlettwein said that the needed solutions to curb climate change and avoid loss of life, livelihood, and biodiversity are difficult to achieve in current circumstances.
He added that this is because the world is subjected to an economic system that requires growth based on consumption. “The measure of GDP is used as a measure for success. This implies that the very cause of climate change, excessive consumption, is still unaddressed, and the consequences thereof will remain,” Schlettwein said.
Secondly, he added that the political model of dominance in the world is very prevalent. “Might is right, and with that comes the unfortunate fact that much-needed resources are diverted to maintain dominance, fund wars. Our success in addressing climate change will directly depend on whether these two overlying matters are perpetuated or not. The nexus between water, food, and the environment needs to be highlighted. Unsustainably high carbon emissions are the main cause and can be mitigated through the agreed transformation of energy generation, moving away from coal, oil, and gas towards alternative clean sources. Adaptation and the funding thereof must be equally important,” Schlettwein said.
He added that solutions have been found for the energy transformation because they were seen as important, and they were appropriately funded and resourced, but much less has been done for water.
“A similar urgency must, therefore, be given to actions that bring the water cycle back into balance,” Schlettwein urged.
The minister added that desalination, reclamation, sanitation, and pollution avoidance, efficiency improvements, resource management (transboundary and nationally), research, data collection and analysis, capacity building, and the free transfer of water-wise technologies are some of the key points that must be considered as they hold potential for sustainable solutions.
“Access to water must be accepted as a human right, yes, but let me unpack this matter further. The right to water is one of many, and survival is dependent on several related factors. To have drinking water available is one absolute need, so is the need for food, which requires water to be produced. To live in a healthy environment is equally important and that too requires water. The conundrum of needing more water for a growing population, to produce more food, with less water is at the core. Water scarcity may become a much more common phenomenon,” Schlettwein said.
He, however, said that there is a silver lining to this dark cloud, and that is the rapid development of efficiency gains through water-wise technologies on the one hand and the technological progress made in desalination. “These two areas of knowledge and technology development must be further accelerated. The Loss and Damage Fund and its full operationalization are a prerequisite for enabling developing countries generally and in Africa specifically to implement crucial adaptation measures over and above implementing mitigation actions,” Schlettwein said.
