Water, the blind spot of international governance

There is a COP for the climate, another for biodiversity… but still none for water. And yet, recent events underline the urgency: the spectacular collapse of the Birch Glacier in Switzerland is a major warning, while nearly two-thirds of the world’s freshwater resources come from glaciers.

Everywhere, water-related tensions are intensifying: droughts, pollution, shortages, conflicts over use… Pressure is increasing on a resource whose total volume remains stable, but whose quality is dangerously deteriorating. In the front line: agriculture, industry and energy production, which alone account for 70% of the water withdrawn and polluted worldwide.

Even more worrying: 50% of the water footprint required for the economies of developed countries comes from regions subject to extreme water insecurity. This finding highlights a major blind spot of our time: our dependence on water, whether in our lifestyles, consumption or production. A dependence that continues to grow, since by 2050 global freshwater needs are expected to quadruple!

A local resource with global implications

The main problem is that water is still perceived as a local good, falling under national sovereignty. It crystallizes divergent interests — agriculture, energy, industry, health — that hinder the emergence of unified governance. Politicians, businesses and citizens struggle to conceive of global water management, which they consider above all as a local resource.

Faced with this emergency, the international community currently has no permanent multilateral space to define common priorities, mobilize financing or coordinate action. And this, while by 2050, 50% of the population will experience periods of water shortage during part of the year.

A strong signal was, however, sent in March 2023 in New York with the first World Water Conference in nearly fifty years. This historic event brought together states, institutions, scientists and civil society to permanently place water on the global political agenda. Above all, it revealed the emergence of a collective will to consider water as a global, cross-cutting and vital issue.

Define a direction and priorities

The next step could be taken very soon in Nice, during the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3). For one can no longer separate the oceans from freshwater: they are part of the same planetary cycle, closed, fragile, on which our survival depends and whose imbalance threatens life. The challenge will not be to create a new institution there, but to organize cooperation around a common, clear and ambitious vision.

Positive signs are appearing, notably in Europe. In France, the 2023 Water Plan lays the foundations of a policy of sobriety and resilience. And at the European level, the Commission has just published its first water resilience strategy, affirming its strategic role for the continent’s security, health and economy.

UNOC3 will be an opportunity to take a decisive step by collectively setting clear objectives for the protection and sustainable management of water. These global objectives could offer a direction that each State would then translate into a national trajectory, adapted to its realities and priorities.

Water is neither local nor foreign: it is the invisible link that unites us all. Recognizing it as a global common good is finally giving ourselves the means to take care of it, for today… and for tomorrow.

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