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As the UN meets, make water central to climate action

Managing water and climate in tandem would protect water resources, reduce disaster risks, lower greenhouse-gas emissions and assure equitable access.
  1. M. Feisal Rahman

    1. M. Feisal Rahman is senior water and adaptation specialist at the Global Center on Adaptation, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Part of his contribution was drafted while he was at the Living Deltas Hub, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

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  2. Aditi Mukherji

    1. Aditi Mukherji is director of the Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Impact Area Platform at CGIAR in New Delhi, India.

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  3. Åse Johannessen

    1. Åse Johannessen is a senior researcher/adviser at Deltares, Delft, the Netherlands, and guest researcher in the Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

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  4. Shilpi Srivastava

    1. Shilpi Srivastava is a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.

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  5. Joep Verhagen

    1. Joep Verhagen is global lead, Water and Urban programme at the Global Centre on Adaptation, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

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  6. Henk Ovink

    1. Henk Ovink is the Netherlands’ special envoy for international water affairs.

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  7. Willem Ligtvoet

    1. Willem Ligtvoet is programme manager, water and climate adaptation at PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague, the Netherlands.

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  8. Emmanuel Olet

    1. Emmanuel Olet is chief water development officer at the African Development Bank, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

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This week in New York City, the United Nations is holding its second global Water Conference — after a gap of 46 years. At the first meeting in 1977, climate change was not even on the agenda. Today, there is stark evidence that the world is warming and that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels are to blame1,2. At the same time, the global water cycle has been wrecked by decades of mismanagement and intensified by climate change. As a result, 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion people live in areas where water is scarce for at least part of the year1 — and those numbers could double by 2050. Strategies for governing water and addressing climate change in tandem must be higher on the political agenda.

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Nature 615, 582-585 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00793-9

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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