Water governance: an international perspective 15 th November Jamie Pittock Crawford School of Economics & Government

Transcription

1 Water governance: an international perspective 15 th November 2010 Jamie Pittock Crawford School of Economics & Government

2 The litmus test for multilateral governance Halve the number of people without adequate access to water, sanitation and energy by 2015 (UN MDG & WSSD) (c) Derk Kuiper National Integrated Water Resources Management Plans (commenced) by 2005 (WSSD). Significantly reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010 (WSSD & CBD)

3 Fragmentation and dichotomies Water governance debates: Water supply and sanitation: Millennium Development Goals Human right to water: UN debate Public vs private good: World Water Council Integrated Water Resources Management: WSSD Water wars vs cooperation Environment vs human use Environment sector integration Bottle Bend, River Murray NSW, Sep 2000 (c) J Pittock.

4 263 rivers globally 45% Earth s land area 60% surface freshwaters 40% world s people 145 countries Shared rivers

5 Water Availability: Sub-national Water Availability: 2003 Extreme Scarcity <500 Scarcity 500-1,000 Stress 1,000-1,700 Adequate 1,700-4,000 Abundant 4,000-10,000 m 3 /person/year Surplus >10,000 Ocean/ Inland Water No Data

6 Disputes over shared rivers Indus: Already struggles to reach the sea given the needs of 140 million Pakistanis. Now dam development plans in the headwaters, controlled by India, have raised accusations that the 1960 Water Treaty is being violated. Aral Sea: Central Asian states disagree over the declining inflows since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ganga & Brahmaputra: Massive dam and water transfer plans by India & China. Could impact on Bangladesh. Amur Heilong: Chemical pollution in is impacting on fisheries & people. This river border has been a past battle ground between Russia & China. Jordan River: Israel occupied the Golan heights in 1967 to secure this strategic watershed, and is in dispute with Syria, Jordan & Palestine over water management. Tigris & Euphrates: In past decades Iraq has threatened to attack a dam in Syria, and Syria has threatened to attack Turkey, as massive dam construction in Turkey allows it to shut off downstream water flows. Nile: Conflict has been threatened with upstream states like Ethiopia for using Nile basin water, which was awarded to Sudan & Egypt by a colonial treaty. Okavango: Namibia plans to dam the Okavango River, causing concerns in Botswana, that depends on its inland delta. Mekong Licang: In Thailand, Laos, Cambodia & Vietnam, beneficial floods sustain fisheries critical for protein for ~60 m people. China & Myanmar are not members of the Mekong River Commission. New dams threaten to greatly reduce this fishery.

7 UN Watercourses Convention Note: Ratifications as at states have now ratified

8 blue water green water Multilateral environmental agreements & the hydrological cycle FCCC Indirect impacts on marine ecosystems Atmospheric ecosystem Direct impacts on the atmospheric ecosystem Indirect impacts on terrestrial ecosystems Indirect impacts on aquatic ecosystems indirect impacts on atmospheric ecosystem (through evapotranspiration cycle) CCD Marine conventions Coastal marine ecosystem Direct impacts on coastal marine ecosystem Indirect impacts on atmospheric ecosystem Indirect impacts on aquatic ecosystem Indirect impacts on coastal marine ecosystems Indirect impacts on coastal marine ecosystem Aquatic ecosystem CBD Direct impacts on aquatic ecosystems Indirect impacts on aquatic ecosystems Indirect impacts on terrestrial ecosystem Subterranean ecosystems Direct impacts on subterranean ecosystems Terrestrial ecosystem Ramsar Indirect impacts on terrestrial ecosystems Direct impacts on terrestrial ecosystem Indirect impacts on aquatic ecosystem Indirect impacts on subterranean ecosystems Source: H MacKay, Ramsar STRP 8

9 Planetary boundaries [?] Source: Rockström et al. Nature 461, (24 September 2009) doi: /461472a) 9

10 Source: IPCC Photos: (c) J Pittock Source: WWF Climate water biodiversity links Freshwater ecosystems: Biodiverse. Directly threatened. Threatened by climate change policies. 10

11 HYDROWORLD.com Sept 2010: World Bank report supports hydropower development, integrated water resources management WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S. 9/1/10 (PennWell) -- A newly-released report on the World Bank Group's water strategy calls for support for hydropower in developing countries, while urging a more integrated approach to water resources management. Specifically, the report, endorsed by the World Bank Board's Committee on Development Effectiveness (CODE), directs the Bank Group to: Scale-up support for hydropower, as the largest source of renewable and low-carbon energy, including high-risk, high-reward infrastructure projects China to boost hydropower capacity by 50 percent by 2015 BEIJING, China 9/1/10 (PennWell) -- China plans to boost its installed hydroelectric power capacity to 300 million kw by 2015 from the current 200 million in an effort to cut carbon dioxide emissions... Government officials told media outlets that such an expansion is needed for China's goal to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 40 to 45 percent by China promised at the Copenhagen Conference on global climate change last year that it would generate 15 percent of its power from non-fossil sources by 2020, up from the current 7.8 percent....

12 Integration Procedural: in policy-making : comprehensiveness to the input stage; aggregation to the processing of inputs; and consistency to outputs (Underdal 1980). Sustainable development: "In order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it (Principle 4, 1992 Rio Declaration). Integration (extends Ross and Dovers (2008) definition beyond governments): the connection of goals, functions and processes across institutions to increase coordination and effectiveness. 12

13 Integrative and interplay elements Legal mandate Vertical interplay Leadership NGO participation monitoring, reporting, independent assessments Horizontal interplay 13

14 Possible multilateral solutions not mutually exclusive Action at more local scales? Mini-lateralism? Clustering and other integrative mechanisms (eg. Oberthur, UN agencies) but has not succeeded in the past ten years Overarching environmental governance reforms, eg. World Environment Organisation (Biermann; France & Brazil) Incentives for collaboration: not tried, cheap? (Secretariat budgets, 2004 in US M: UNFCCC $16.7, CBD $12.0, Ramsar $3.9). Via GEF (US$780M/yr)? 14

15 Conclusions: The solution to water is more complex than the solution to climate change. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Nestle. (World Economic Forum, Switzerland, January 2008) 1. The global water sector is fragmented and incoherent 2. Integrated governance is the challenge 3. We know many of the solutions but barriers to implementation are substantial 4. Reform of international governance is required 15