There’s good and bad news from a sweeping new report on the world’s water scarcity out today from McKinsey & Co., commissioned by such water-dependent companies as Coca-Cola, Nestle, SAB Miller and Syngenta, along with the World Bank/International Finance Corp.
The bad: Global demand for water already exceeds supply—about 1.1 billion people don’t have access to clean water—and the so-called water gap is increasing at an accelerating rate.
The good: Cost-effective, sustainable solutions are available to close the gap, particularly if governments and business focus on reducing demand rather than trying to generate additional supply.
The challenge: Getting beyond the nostrum that water is a “human right” so that water, which is obviously a scarce resource, can be priced in a way that drives conservation.
One more thing to know: Water issues are at least as complex as energy, and all water problems are local, so generalizing about water, while inevitable, is invariably misleading.
As Martin Stuchtey of McKinsey put it: “We are not saying there is one way to close the water gap, and we fully acknowledge the complexity of the water arena.”
The 185-page report, published by the 2030 Water Resources Group, was released this morning at a [click to continue…]
{ 3 comments }
