Today is the international Blog Action Day 2010, on the issue of water. I think we should all welcome this initiative. Water is both literally and metaphorically, “vital” for the very future of life on Earth.
You might think that as European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries my job deals with the seas and oceans and has little to do with freshwater issues. Not so I’m afraid. The natural cycles of freshwater and salt water are in fact strongly intertwined and can hardly be looked at in isolation.
Some examples?
- The effects of climate change on ocean circulation directly affect rain patterns on land, which in turn determine the presence – or not – of drinking water.
- The pollution of rivers causes not only scarcity of drinking water and all the related problems of water cleaning: it is also a problem for the seas, as 80% of all the pollution that the seas take in actually comes from the land.
- Again climate change and rising sea levels contribute to increases in salt levels in freshwater in coastal areas. Parts of the Mediterranean and some islands have already lost ALL their freshwater reserves in this way! And all this before we have even considered the negative impact on agriculture.
- This means that some islands and some countries rely almost entirely on saltwater desalination for their drinking water – and I don’t need to tell you what the potential hazards of a polluting accident near desalination plants would be.
- At the same time, as we remove the salt to make drinking water, we put the salt back into the sea; and the higher salt levels in the sea can damage the ecosystem.
I could go on, but my point is that those working for the protection of the marine environment – like myself – and those working for the protection of freshwater resources share an interest in reversing the current trends. According to the UN World Water Development Report, by 2050 at least one in four people is likely to live in a country affected by chronic or recurring shortages of freshwater. Water management is an urgent matter in every part of the world and it is everybody’s business.
What we need is a more sustainable approach to water resource management. Water policy must be integrated into energy and transport policies, just like we are including it into the EU’s Integrated Maritime Policy. International cooperation, especially among countries sharing water resources, can address the cross-border nature of many water issues.
We should stop focusing on increasing supply and instead try managing water by addressing different consumption patterns. We can and should turn reduced water availability into an opportunity to boost research, innovation and investment.
It is estimated that some 20 to 40% of Europe’s available water is being wasted, and ironically this is especially true in water-scarce regions. For example, in France and Spain up to 34% of water is lost before it reaches the consumer; in Denmark the figure is just 7%. Water efficiency could be improved by nearly 40% through technological improvements alone.
To conclude, I’d like to echo the sentiments of former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the launch of the “Water for Life Decade” in 2005: “Water resources are our lifeline for both survival and sustainable development in the 21st century: it is our job to manage them better”.
Let’s make sure we get the job done.
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Dear Commissioner Damanaki :
As you mention clean water is vital for the human race , and now the EU as well as the USA and other world areas, are considering going after underground natural gas by a process called hydraulic fracturing , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing , where many toxic chemicals are pumped at high pressure with water to break the molecules of gas away from the rock molecules and extract them, and these chemicals will reach drinking water tables sooner or later.
Dear Commissioner, why go this way when we can get huge amounts of energy from the sun, wind and wave-currents as well as shallow geothermal , non-edible bio-fuels and water-hydrogen fuel-cells without ruining our drinking water ? why do something so shortsighted ? so dumb ? why ?
The real problem is leadership, and take a country , China, which has huge energy and water problems, and yet they just announced a 5 year Clean Energy Plan with 570 billion Euros , so they will be the leaders in Solar, Wind, Wave, Bio-fuels, fuel-cells and energy storage technologies, batteries and leaders also in our subject : Clean Water …….. and what about us ?
Why not help the EU leaders see that the Future is Clean Energy and Clean Water ,and not hydraulic fracturing and polluted drinking waters ?
One way to create new jobs is to break the “Oil-Gas Wall” Lobby, a powerful lobby that slows down every Solar and Wind Project in key markets like the USA and others, so why not foster partnerships between the big players to push through ? Partner G.E. and Siemens and U.T. and Philips and ABB , Johnson Controls, CAT ,etc., and with EU’s ENEL Green , Iberdrola, Abengoa, Gamesa, EDP, First Solar and all the EU and USA smaller solar , wind and batteries makers, get them all together and fight for their right to serve the consumers and taxpayers, and break the Oil-Gas Lobby Monopoly, that massive corrupt lobby that’s got politicians in Washington D.C., Brussels, and many capitals stuck in reverse and near bankruptcy.
This is a fight not only for clean water but for survival, for life, and the EU ( and the USA ) must be leaders and win.
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