Water management
The committee on climate change of the European Parliament organised a hearing on "Water and Climate Change"
In a first intervention a representative of the UNEP underlined the major threats on water availability due to climate change. He underlined for instance that:
- some of the worldwide larget rivers, like the Indus river, could turn into seasonal rivers in a close futur (20 to 30 years) which would put at risk the lives of millions of people;
- up to 77 million people could live under water stress in 2020 in South America
- currently 24 nuclear power plants in the USA (equivalent to 23% of the US nuclear power capacity) face shut down because of water shortages. This shows once again that nuclear is not a solution to climate change.
The question of the agrofuels is also heavily linked to the water factor: according to this UNEP representative a Life Cycle Analysis of some agrofuels shows that 1000 litres of water are used to produce 1 litre of agrofuel!
For the full information:
Documents of the hearing (pdf)
European Parliament's study on water and climate change (pdf)
