A recent survey confirms that African nations are home to the world’s most vulnerable water supplies, and face substantial risks from climate change and population growth.
British consultancy group Maplecroft crafted a “water security risk index” of 165 nations around the world based on criteria such as access to drinking water, per capita demand and dependence on water from rivers which first travel through other neighboring nations.
The survey showed primarily African and Asian nations had the most vulnerable supplies, with Somalia, Mauritania, Sudan, Niger and Iraq leading the list of “riskiest nations.”
However, poor countries are not the only ones facing increased water risk, noted Anna Moss, an author of the study. Regions of the United States and Australia are also at high risk levels., as are European countries like Bulgaria, Belgium and Spain.
On the other end of the spectrum, the most secure water supplies can be found in Iceland, Norway and New Zealand.
China and India have formally agreed to ratify the Copenhagen Accord, the global climate agreement which stemmed from last year’s U.N. climate change convention in Copenhagen.
Over 100 countries have already approved the Accord, which aims to limit the increase in global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels. The Accord also calls for spending on the scale of $100 billion a year to assist emerging countries in making adaptations to climate change.
China and India are two of the world’s fastest growing economies, and in recent years their rates of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions have skyrocketed. By joining the Accord, China and India have added legitimacy to the treaty and have demonstrated to the rest of the world that they are serious about addressing these important climate issues.
Climate change impacts will have disastrous effects on the world’s water supplies, according to water experts at the United Nations. In a recent interview with Reuters, Zafar Adeel, the chair of UN-Water, a group which coordinates water-related activities among 26 other U.N. agencies, warned “the main manifestations of rising temperatures… are about water.”
Because water is so essential for every aspect of human and animal life, there are “potential for conflicts” as water resources grow scarce. As temperatures rise, it is likely that up to 250 million people could suffer additional water stress by 2020. Central Asia and Africa are some of the regions most likely to be affected by this stress, and could face increased desertification, flash floods, heat waves as well as increased occurances of water-borne diseases as a result of poor sanitation. Right now, Adeel said, about 2.8 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation.
Adeel is urging for a stronger focus on water issues in the global dialog of climate change, food security and economic recover. ”Water is central to each of these debates, but typically isn’t seen as such.”
The need to address climate change while facilitating continued economic growth and social progress is a key challenge facing world leaders today. Investing in a Low-Carbon Energy Future in the Developing World ( 1 MB) explores how governments and business can work together to solve these challenges by aligning policies, mechanisms and tools with the commercial conditions under which a business typically invests, in order to scale up private investment.
Future demand for energy is rising substantially, particularly in rapidly emerging economies and in many developing countries that lack even the most basic of energy services. The investments required to address future energy demand as well as climate change are substantial. Significant scaling up of investment flows into the development and deployment of low-carbon energy technologies is urgently required in both developed and developing countries to bridge the “so-called” emerging investment gap. Additional finance is also needed for adaptation, particularly in the world’s poorest countries. Private investment will be essential.
The ability of a technology or infrastructure project to attract investment depends heavily on commercial returns. The report provides a clear commercial business perspective by addressing how and why business invests, investment risk profiles, and the incentives needed in order to scale up investment in new technology research, development, demonstration and deployment.
Most stakeholders agree that it will take a combination of public and private financial sources, a broad range of mechanisms and instruments, carbon markets, and official development assistance to guarantee the energy demands of the future in a way that mitigates climate impacts. Policies are urgently needed that integrate development, energy and climate priorities.
Creating demand for new technologies, giving clear and strong expectations of a carbon price, building capacity through stable and transparent regulatory regimes, and providing incentives during crucial technology demonstration phases and fast-track approval processes are also likely to help green the investment flow and reduce the overall “energy bill” of developing countries.
Both India and South Africa are establishing massive seawater desalination plants in order to address the supply and treatment of domestic water resources.
India will begin construction on the nation’s largest desalination plant in the city in Nemmili next month. The project is slated for completion in two years, at which point it will be capable of producing 100 million liters per day (MLD) of fresh water from sea water via reverse osmosis. The desalination plant will help meet municipal water needs, which have previously been met via monsoon rains. Changing climate and weather patterns, however, are making India’s monsoon season more unpredictable. Read more here…
In South Africa, upgrades are being made to an existing desalination plant on the Eastern Cape. Upon completion, the new plant will have a ready to serve a municipal population of nearly 50,000 people in the Ndjambe Municipality. Read more here…
The World Bank announced last week its intention to invest $5.5 billion into North African solar power. The funding will go towards 11 concentrating solar power (CSP) facilities being developed in five different countries in the region, including Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.
CSP technology employs mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto a single central point in the installation. The concentrated energy heats up water which then drives a turbine to produce electricity. The North African project aims to generate 900 MW by 2020, effectively tripling the world’s total CSP capacity. The majority of the electricity generated will be used in North Africa, but a significant portion will be put up for sale, and will likely be exported to European markets.
It is estimated the project will prevent the release of 1.7 million tons of greenhouse gases each year, and is the equivalent of removing 600,000 cars from the world’s roadways. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2011.
After a tense two weeks of negotiations and over two years of preparatory talks, delegates at the COP15 Copenhagen Climate Summit finally formulated a global agreement, reinforcing the need for strong international action on climate change issues.
The Copenhagen Accord is a non-binding agreement between developed and developing nations which aims to cap overall temperature rise to within 2° Celcius. Over the next three years, $30 billion in financing from developed nations will help support emissions reductions projects in some of the world’s poorest countries. Developed nations are working towards a long term, $100 billion a year financing plan by 2020. Read more about the Copenhagen Accord…
The Copenhagen Accord is not a legally binding agreement, and many delegates are frustrated with the underwhelming results of the talks. World leaders like Barack Obama, on the other hand, called the accord “an important breakthrough,” but stressed that much more action is needed to truly address the global threat of climate change. Read more about world responses to the conference…
Morocco has enlisted Germany as an ally as it works to develop its domestic renewable energy resources. The nation currently imports 97% of its energy, but has announced plans to develop a solar-powered desalination plant and install 2,000MW of solar by 2020.
The DESERTEC Initiative plans to invest €400 billion over the coming years to harness the North African sunlight with massive solar thermal installations. The energy generated from the sun will then be transported to Europe via underwater cables. By 2050, the Initiative could provide up to 15% of Europe’s electricity needs. Morocco is competing with nations like Algeria, Tunisia and Libya for some of these investment dollars.
Because Morocco already has a power cable link to Europe, DESERTEC member companies such as Munich Re, Siemens AG and RWE AG have shown great interest in the project. Further details will be fleshed out during a round of talks between the governments next week.
Criticizing what they see as a lack of effort by developed nations to implement tough stances on climate change, delegates from Ethiopia, Algeria and Gambia led an African nation boycot of the U.N. climate talks being held in Barcelona this week.
African countries are very vulnerable to the dangerous effects of climate change, and without assistance and commitment to action from the rest of the world, they could fall prey to food and water shortages, and increased flooding, droughts and heatwaves. ”Africa believes that the other groups are not taking talks seriously enough, not urgently enough,” said Kabeya Tshikuku, one of the delegates from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Artur Runge-Metzger, head of the European Commission delegation, said he respected the protesting delegates’ intent, but called the move “self-defeating.” Blocking the negotiations now will “certainly not get us to a result” now that the Copenhagen talks are a little over a month away.
With the formation of a new consortium, the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) has taken a large steptowards its ambitious goal of bringing solar-generated energy from the North African desert to the European electricity grid.
DII estimates the $400 billion project could provide up to 15% of Europe’s electricity needs by 2050, and may start operations as early as 2015. Desertec will install massive concentrated solar power (CSP) plants across large swaths of North Africa to harness the power of the Sahara sunshine. The energy generated from these plants will then travel by high voltage direct current cables across the Mediterranean to end users in Europe.
European energy industry expert and DII chief executive Paul von Son says “the time has come to turn this vision into reality.” Read the full article…
GNPC Will Not Recognize Kosmos Energy’s $4 Billion Deal
Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), the state-run oil company, has accused Kosmos Energy of illegally selling its stake in the Jubilee offshore oil field to Exxon Mobil. GNPC said Kosmos Energy violated Ghanian laws by sharing confidential exploration data on the Jubilee offshore field – one of the largest discoveries made in Western Africa in the past ten years – with more than 20 companies without notifying GNPC in advance. GNPC says it will not formally recognize the $4 billion deal Kosmos reached with Exxon, and instead is looking to purchase stakes in the field itself. As reported in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has also expressed interest in purchasing the shares. GNPC has is confident of its ability to acquire the shares, proclaiming they “have the money ready.” Despite this dispute, it is unlikely that the Ghanian government will veto entirely Kosmos’ deal with Exxon, but they might “seek some revisions” to “accommodate its nascent national oil company,” says Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, an analyst with the Eurasia Group.
Oil giant ExxonMobil has made its first move into the potentially lucrative West African oil market, signing a $4 billion deal to purchase stakes in an offshore field off the coast of Ghana. The shares in this field, called “Jubilee,” were previously held by Kosmos Energy, a privately held international exploration and production company. It is estimated that the Jubilee field could contain between 650 million and 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Although there has been widespread interest in the field and the overall region, Exxon is the first global oil major to make an entry, and now holds interests in some of the largest acreages in West Africa.
Company Hopes Discovery Will Lead to More in Region
Anadarko Petroleum announced a deepwater oil discovery at its “Venus” exploration well off the coast of Sierra Leone. The first hydrocarbons emerged after drilling down 18,500 ft into an offshore well located under 5,900 ft. of seawater. Although the exact size of the find is unknown, Anadarko says it usually only drills in areas which have the potential for reserves yielding between 150 million and 1 billion barrels of oil. Anadarko has interests in eight million acres across the West African coastline, and the company is hoping this new discovery will be the first of many in the area. “The Venus discovery confirms the existence of an active petroleum system in the basin and enhances the prospectivity of our vast West African acreage position,” said Bob Daniels, Anadarko’s VP for worldwide exploration.
Carbon Sequestration Initiatives could Benefit Agricultural Sector
Climate change could be a “major development opportunity” for agricultural carbon sequestration in Africa, said managing director of the World Bank Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in a lecture at the London School of Economics. As global emission rise, using plant life to absorb and store CO2 is likely to become an important and commonly used mitigating strategy, she said. By 2030, the U.N. estimates that 5.5-6 gigatons of CO2 could be stored via agricultural sequestration, with approximately 89% being stored in the soil. If such strategies are incorporated into international carbon treaties, “agricultural carbon sequestration could generate annual revenues of close to $1.5 billion” for Africa, remarked Okonjo-Iweala. However, despite these new economic opportunities, Africa is still very vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Rising temperatures could bring increased instances of both drought and flooding, spelling trouble for the African agricultural industry, which employs about 70% of the Continent’s population.
A recent survey confirms that African nations are home to the world’s most vulnerable water supplies, and face substantial risks from climate change and population growth.
1 MB) explores how governments and business can work together to solve these challenges by aligning policies, mechanisms and tools with the commercial conditions under which a business typically invests, in order to scale up private investment.
Both India and South Africa are establishing massive seawater desalination plants in order to address the supply and treatment of domestic water resources.
The World Bank announced last week its intention to invest $5.5 billion into North African solar power. The funding will go towards 11 concentrating solar power (CSP) facilities being developed in five different countries in the region, including Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.
After a tense two weeks of negotiations and over two years of preparatory talks, delegates at the COP15 Copenhagen Climate Summit finally formulated a global agreement, reinforcing the need for strong international action on climate change issues.
Morocco has enlisted Germany as an ally as it works to develop its domestic renewable energy resources. The nation currently imports 97% of its energy, but has announced plans to develop a solar-powered desalination plant and install 2,000MW of solar by 2020.