Secretary of the UN Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes Sonja Koppel. INTERVIEW | Much of the impact of climate change is water-related Climate and Environment
In today’s world, droughts and floods are increasingly occurring in places where such extreme weather events were once rare. This is due to climate change, explains Sonja Koppel, secretary of the UN Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes. UN News spoke to her on the sidelines of the 29th UN Climate Change Conference, which ended Sunday in Baku.
The Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) aims to protect and ensure the quality, quantity and sustainable use of transboundary water resources by promoting cooperation.
It was originally conceived as a regional convention of the member states of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The document was adopted in Helsinki, Finland, in 1992 and entered into force in 1996. In 2003, the Parties to the Convention decided to amend the Treaty to allow any UN member state to accede to the instrument. In 2016, the Convention officially became the global legal basis for cooperation on transboundary water resources.
The interview with the Secretary of the Convention, Sonja Koppel, is published in an abridged form.
UN News Service: How Climate Change Is Affecting the World’s Water?
Sonja Koppel: Most of the impacts of climate change are felt through the water cycle. More than 80 percent of natural disasters are water-related: floods, droughts and other extreme events. For example, we have recently seen massive floods in Spain, the Sahel region of Africa and Australia. On the other hand, droughts are increasingly occurring in areas where they were once rare, such as the Amazon basin in Latin America.
In addition, climate change affects water quality and water supply infrastructure, which in turn affects other areas of life: health, agriculture, energy and transport. For example, when the water level in the Rhine River drops due to drought, shipping has to be stopped. Likewise, hydroelectric power plants stop operating when the water level is too low, as is the case in some parts of the United States. Thus, many of the impacts of climate change, including those that affect our daily lives, are linked to the water cycle.
However, this aspect has not yet been sufficiently discussed in the global discussions on climate change. It was only at COP27 in Egypt that the importance of water was mentioned for the first time in the outcome document, and at COP28, water-related issues were recognized as a key thematic objective of adaptation to climate change.
Water is important not only for adaptation, but also for mitigating climate change. Many measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions also require significant amounts of water. For example, renewable energy production is directly dependent on water resources, but this factor is largely ignored in climate discussions. To draw attention to this problem, the UN recently published an analytical report on the role of water in mitigating climate change. One example: Mauritius planned to expand biofuel production, but it turned out that this would require significant amounts of water, which is in short supply in the region. As a result, desalination plants were proposed, which, however, would increase energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. Considering the relationship between water and climate, it was possible to develop more sustainable solutions.
Another important aspect is the transboundary nature of water resources. Climate change knows no borders, and neither does water. Sixty percent of the world’s freshwater resources are shared by two or more countries, and 40 percent of the world’s population lives in river, lake or groundwater basins shared by several countries. Cooperation between countries is important to prevent conflicts, such as the tensions in the Nile Basin between Ethiopia and Egypt. At the same time, transboundary cooperation promotes sustainable development, peacebuilding and regional integration.
To support such cooperation, there is the UN Water Convention, a global legal and intergovernmental mechanism. To date, 55 countries have become parties to it, more than 30 more are in the process of joining, and representatives of 130 states participate in the Convention’s events. The Convention helps countries coordinate water management, prevent conflicts and create transboundary agreements to manage river, lake and groundwater basins.
An example of successful cooperation is Central Asia. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan share the Aral Sea basin, where an environmental catastrophe has been occurring for decades. As a result of joint efforts, the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea was created, which implements projects to restore ecosystems and improve the condition of the basin. Currently, Kazakhstan chairs this international organization. The Fund’s work has helped slow down negative processes and to some extent improve the situation with the Aral Sea.
Another example is the Talas River, which flows through Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Previously, there were disagreements between the countries, but with the support of the UN, they developed a transboundary agreement and created a commission for joint water management. Kazakhstan even agreed to finance infrastructure in Kyrgyzstan, which strengthened cooperation. The countries also began to jointly develop strategies for adaptation to climate change, taking into account such problems as melting glaciers and droughts. The implementation of joint measures, including ecosystem restoration and raising awareness among local populations, helped strengthen regional cooperation and minimize the impacts of climate change.