The water scarcity crisis has caused a global epidemic in some places. Some environments experience excessive water downpours or pollution while other areas face severe droughts. The United Nations will this week discuss the global crisis on water that has been long overlooked. Even though the welfare of billions of people is at stake.
Netherlands is co-organizing the UN Water Summit from Wednesday through Friday along with Tajikistan. Henk Ovink, the Water Issues Special Envoy for the Netherlands said-
“It’s the first time in 46 years that the world comes together on the issue of water”.
The last conference at this high level on the issue, which lacks a global treaty or a dedicated UN agency, was held in 1997 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, and the situation is dire.
“We wrecked the hydrological cycle,” said Ovink, adding that he has never been more worried.
“We take too much water from our ground. We pollute the water that is left and there is now so much water in the air that it is impacting our environment, our economies, our communities, through climate change,” he added.
This means there is drought in some places and flooding in others. This is happening in a cycle that is worsening around the world because of global warming triggered by human activity.
Furthermore, the UN says 2.3 billion people today live in countries with water stress.
In 2020, two billion people did not have access to drinking water, 3.6 billion had no toilets at home and 2.3 billion had no way to wash their hands at home — poor sanitary conditions that lead to disease.
These circumstances are a far cry from the sustainable development goals set by the UN in 2015; one was to “ensure access to water and sanitation for all by 2030”.
cc: Punch Ng
