3주차|식량·물·글로벌 생존 이슈_강혜지

[강혜지]

A new initiative to safeguard the world’s water supply

Speaker: Inger Andersen, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Date: 2025.11.13
Word Count: 444

A new initiative to safeguard the world’s water supply

Glossary
1. COP Presidency / Presidencies: 기후변화 당사국총회 의장국, 의장단
2. Baku Dialogue on Water for Climate Actio: 기후행동을 위한 물에 관한 바쿠 대화

3. SDG 6 (Sustainable Development Goal 6): 지속가능발전목표 6번 / 깨끗한 물과 위생에 대한 접근 보장
4. desiccation: (토양의) 건조화

5. Water for Climate Action Initiative: 기후행동을 위한 물 이니셔티브

6. UNEP: 유엔환경계획 / 유엔 산하 환경 분야 최고 기구

7. Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs): 다자환경협약

8. development banks: 개발은행 / 국제개발금융을 담당하는 공공 금융기관

Script

Excellencies and Colleagues,

My thanks to the COP 29 and COP 30 Presidencies for launching and taking forward the Baku Dialogue on Water for Climate Action, building on previous COP 28 leadership in advancing water resilience. The Baku Dialogue is a vital COP-to-COP collaboration platform. An impressive 73 countries and 25 non-state actors have endorsed the declaration. I hope to see many others follow suit.

Globally, as is true for the beautiful Amazon, water is fundamental to life. But humanity is driving climate change and destroying and polluting vital ecosystems. This disrupts the hydrological cycle, with massive implications.

Nearly three billion people face water scarcity. Over 90 per cent of disasters are water-related – such as the deadly floods in Brazil. Half of all countries reporting on SDG6 have one or more freshwater-related ecosystems in a state of degradation. As extreme heat grows, we are seeing more evaporation, desiccation and desertification. No community or economy is spared the consequences of a water cycle that is out of balance. Nations clearly understand this, as water is among the top three sectors in all national adaptation plans.

We must take an urgent economy-wide approach across the entire water cycle. We need to involve all sectors and voices – including Indigenous Peoples, youth and civil society. Crucially, we must catalyze investments in water, particularly for solutions that lean on nature. 

We can drive investment through policy tools such as pricing, regulations, procurement, grants and loans. Through tariff and subsidy structures that incentivize water conservation while supporting the poor. Through accounting for the economic value of water and freshwater ecosystems. And more.

The Water for Climate Action Initiative can help to deliver on such efforts. As host of the Initiative, UNEP is committed to placing nature, the human right to a healthy environment and access to water and sanitation at the heart of this collaborative approach. 

UNEP aims to ensure coherent water-related action across the climate, biodiversity and desertification COPs, to strengthen synergies across other related Multilateral Environmental Agreements and to reconvene the Baku Dialogue at each climate COP. 

UNEP will deliver targeted technical, scientific and governance support, and leverage its global networks because regional and global cooperation is critical. Climate impacts are cascading, compounding and transboundary. They affect water, ecosystems and food systems within and across national boundaries. If nations do not cooperate, they will fail.

Excellencies,

The time has come to match ambition with investment. I encourage governments, development banks and the private sector to step forward with pledges to finance the Water for Climate Action Initiative. And to help us protect a resource that is central to climate resilience, to biodiversity, to peace and to sustainable development.