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Good morning again ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to this plenary session called draw the potentlessly “Sustaining a Shrinking Planet
and I have on the platform with me this morning a tremendous
group of speakers to inform and entertain us on a key question facing us,
which it is, does population and prosperity grow globally
or across the world natural resources such as water and land
on demanding pressure threatening through production economic growth?
So we need to ask also how can we manage a scarce resource which water
and land turn out to be to ensure food, security,
economic growth, environmental sustainability?
Twenty years ago I made a series of films of the BBC called…
for long hour films that people thought we were crazy
because now I’m interested in the idea that water might be a scarcity.
We would just a few years ahead of our time.
On my immediate left, I have the President of Iceland,
Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, next to the President,
Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, too many if you know Chairman
of the Board of Nestle and a Member of the Foundation Board of Forum.
Next to Peter, Bram Klaejisen from Cargill in Singapore.
Next to Bram, Tom Searle, Group CEO and President CH2M HILL.
Then the distinguished Chief Minister of Karnataka, B.S. Yeddyurappa.
and then one of our hosts and so I am absolutely delight
to welcome you to our state Ren Xuefeng the Vice Mayor of Tianjin
and it’s a great pleasure to have you with us and an opportunity to thank you
for the tremendous hospitality of the city to us as we all come back here.
Mr. President, kick us off.
Tell us why we should be concerned
about the threat to natural resources like land and water?
Paint a picture for us. Inspire us fly at 35,000 feet?
Well first of all I think it is very important to realize
that we don’t normally have a very narrow view of water.
We tend to be speaking primarily about running water from lakeshore rivers
drinking water as you just demonstrated now.
Thank you very much. -That was a visual aid.
But If we look at the globe, water exist in many different forms
and it is the interrelationship of fresh water, the ocean water,
the hot water which comes from underground and can be used to produce clean energy
in most parts of the world.
Well that would wall frozen water which we normally call ice or glaciers,
which of course is now being used to my country.
But the world has only recently woken up to the fact that this is all interrelated.
But if the frozen water starts melting in the glaciers and in the Greenland ice sheet
or in the Himalayas, it will have a tremendous impact on the fresh water,
on the rivers, on the lakes.
and probably the gravest threat to India and China in the coming decades
is the impact of the melting glaciers in the Himalayas or other areas of China
and India or the melting of the ice in Greenland which would sink big cloud
months in many parts of the world including areas of fresh water.
So therefore, in the global planning for the 21st century
I think it is a fundamental importance that we move the parameters
from talking about us in a way as the title of our discussion here today land
and water assuming its agricultural land and drinking water and so on and so forth
to talk about water in its comprehensive way on earth
and they’re of course the depletion of the ocean resources on that to impact this
I speak as the reduced capacity of land to produce agricultural product.
So my first point in this debate is that we really need to move the parameters
of our concerns on and our planning and the global agreements
because we have not yet in a comprehensive way as mankind…
We have a lot to see. -Right.
But we don’t have any comprehensive international agreement dealing
with water in all this for. -Thank you very much.
Peter let me go to you. You’ve been an absolute leader in the corporate world
and beyond the corporate world in the last few years
in trying to get us to think critically and seriously about these issues.
What’s on your mind then? What are the key challenges for you?
Yeah I would like to perhaps focus down again from the comprehensive fuel
to the perhaps more urgent problem of today and I think to understand
that we have to understand that water has basically three dimensions.
I am talking about the fresh water barrier. It has a dimension as a social good.
That’s what we call basically a human right.
Those are the five leaders supported that we need for hydration,
the 25 liters from minimum hygiene.
That’s what they would call social good human right.
The second one is an environmental. -Right.
We need about 4,200 cubic kilometers of water in theory in order to assure
that the fount of the floor of this world can live.
Unfortunately this is a part which has given today most,
that’s where most of the destruction is taking place.
and then we have the other dimension which is a commercial dimension
of the world of which it is the world that we need for watering the closest
for gardening, for swimming pools, for industry,
for all the other things that we have.
This area which is the biggest one has one big problem that in most cases
water doesn’t have a value and therefore we are misusing water.
Today the situation is very clear.
Over the last couple of years we have been over using fresh water
on what is sustainable both can be replenished afterwards.
Today this overuse is 300 cubic kilometer and we made a look into the future.
It’s going to have an impact, substantial impact.
We have the Watergate of about 30 to 40 percent fresh water
if we do not change water policy as it is today.
Which part of it is going to affect mostly?
The most part will be effected is agriculture because we think
it would be forget that we drink 5 liters of water but we are eating depending
whether we have a vegetarian diet or we have a meat diet somewhere
between 2,500 liters of water to 6,500 liters of water each individual every single day.
By the way as we are growing the amount of population
and as we are changing the eaten burdens for a more of vegetarian one to a more mixed one,
we have a huge multiplier in demands for food product
So for the next force coming one just in order to be able to grow
sufficient food is going to be a major challenge, a work of challenge.
Now into that another political dimension which are politicians I think
have not reflected enough which is the introduction of biofuels.
I mean what we are doing with biofuels basically they produce calories
in the agricultural sector for the fuel market, for the energy market.
Now the energy market is 20 times as big as the food increase in caloric terms.
So when our politicians tell us, and we should replace 20 percent of our fuel market,
these biofuels they just cannot make mathematics because 20 percent
of the 20 time bigger market would mean
that today we would have to triple food production immediately.
You need 9,100 liter water to produce 1 liter of diesel
and we are already today, we are overusing the water.
I mean this cannot work out by no way it.
So the fundamental, political fundamental,
the way we are running and managing water today are absolutely wrong.
Very good. We all love.
We’ll come back to how we can manage it better I hope.
Bram, Cargill causes one of the worlds’ leading agriculture and farming companies.
Food security has really become a key political issue in the last few years
until it came out of nowhere in 2007-2008.
How can we manage arable land and so as to address
a growing global concern about food security?
Yeah, I indeed kind of bring it to a bit closer to heart, very close
and I’m gonna talk a bit about – yeah with the increase population
how can we still use without existing resources using them wisely
in order to be sustainable
from a perspective of agriculture and food production and food use.
Well first, so I have four points that I wanna highlight.
The first one is the efficient use of land.
We cannot produce every crop efficiently everywhere in the world.
If a country tries to do that it means that we have inefficient use of land.
I mean it is obvious that corn you can grow very efficiently in the US or in Argentina
or in China but weeds for example you cannot grow everywhere very competitively.
It’s maybe Australia, it’s maybe the US and it is maybe Europe.
So it means similes. You can make a story.
If we try to grow every crop in every country where we need that product
that is just absolutely misuse of the resources that we have available
so we should not do that.
Water management in general, if we can use normal land
and normal rain waters for growing those crops we should do that.
If we need elsewhere irrigation by ground water is complete measures
of the resource waters in those areas.
So we should then get those crops from areas where we produce them
very efficiently to areas where we need them.
Palm oil is a very good example about sustainability.
Palm oil is the biggest oil by the way today used in food products.
It’s also used a bit in biofuels as Mr. Brabeck had just said.
Palm oil is by far the most efficient oil to produce
and used about seven to eight times less land than a grape seed oil or soya oil.
Soya oil actually is worse than grape seed oil.
So seven to eight times less land used in Palm oil compared to the other soft oils.
So to find -- the only solution for the 4 to 5 million tons of increase in oil
per year in the globe will be palm oil.
We cannot just grow more soy beans or more grape seeds in order to produce that oil.
Therefore, it is very important to be aligned on the sustainability of palm oil.
That means that the NGO, the foods -- the branded food companies,
the agricultural companies and the also the governments of the plantation owners
so to speak Indonesia, Malaysia in particular and some other countries,
we have to be aligned in policies that make – that determines what is sustainability.
Set the rules for the game, set how to reinforce them
and how to implement them in a proper way.
We do not see the RSPO and we need to do that more efficiently
in order to really create sustainability there.
One other point and I’m almost done Mr. Chairman is technology.
Technology and especially around the genetically modification,
it is in many countries a taboo. We don’t wanna use them.
Consumers don’t wanna use them.
But the use of technology in GMO in particularly will really help
in growing crops more efficiently, have less diseases, use less pesticides,
less water and make crops less vulnerable
for droughts and this kind of stuff.
So what can we do to convince the consumers that GMO is not a bad thing?
and how can we help the world in making this on saying better.
And one of the last items is free trade.
All of these only can work if we have free trade if we bring products
from areas of surplus to areas of deficit in a proper way.
Therefore, export banks are not very helpful.
Therefore the subsidies we do on certain crops to produce bioethanol
or biodiesel are not very helpful.
They upset and they change basically the system as it is and it creates a problem
for the farmers, it has a problem
for the traders and it just increase the price of the food.
So, to summarize I would say the public sector and the government,
the private sector and the public sector, governments and everybody,
we need to work together to be aligned and to address the issues
and if we do that, I think there is a way out.
There are about three points that I hope we’ll come back to.
I’ll mention one now just to kind of get you prepared.
You very, very briefly mentioned the role of NGOs in your world
and I think we need to focus a little later on,
on the extent to which the issues that you’re addressing
and the issues that you have put before us are clearly,
ones that are widely understood or not widely understood
in the civil society arena supposed you can come back to that.
Tom, your company is a leading engineering
and infrastructure company consulting another staff,
and I know you have a particular passion about how these issues present themselves
in the context of extraordinary urbanization.
So talk to us a little bit about that.
Okay, well thank you.
I’m just gonna focus on three things.
First, I’m going to discuss some of the trends that are relevant to this debate
and then talk about the challenges that result from these trends
and then to conclude with a number of solutions that I think might work
for some of the challenges that we face.
First and foremost, populations are increasing and primarily so in Asia.
The Asia Pacific region really has a 4 billion of our colleagues that live here.
and when you look at Asia in particular in mega cities,
the Asia Pacific region really has 7 of the 10 major mega cities in the world.
China for example is its population is continuing to grow at the pace
of 12 to 13 million per year. That’s a mega city per year.
But there’s another phenomenal occurring and that is urbanization
and looking at the statistics of China by 2015,
50 percent of the population of China will be urbanized.
and that’s a case in India, in Indonesia and elsewhere.
These urban centers are also industrializing themselves.
So we have an issue with population’s increasing,
population’s urbanizing in urbanized centers industrializing.
This put a tremendous strain on the existing infrastructure
of our mega cities and in doing so it causes a lot of challenges.
For example, there is tremendous aged infrastructure in existing mega cities
that will need to be upgraded in addition to expand it.
There’s also a limited water supplies and that fact is even further compounded
by the fact that we pollute whatever existing water supplies we have.
Unless don’t dismiss climate change because it’s for real and it’s happening
and we deal with it all the time, all of the place.
Another important phenomenon here is that in general 80 percent
of all waters used in agriculture and 20 percent is industrial and domestic.
Well, because of the needs of increasing populations
and increasing industrialization,
there’s a shift from agriculture to industrial and domestic.
This will cause in my opinion some concerns and terms
of food supply inflation and other issues.
But it’s not all doom and gloom and let me tell you because these
are problems that we face all the time.
So let me just offer some solutions.
and I want to start of by making this statement.
I believe and many of my colleagues that we do not have a water crisis.
What we have is a water management crisis.
If we can manage this issue, we will be better off.
Let me throw out some suggestions.
First of all, there needs to be more focus on pollution. It’s obviously less costly
to treat an unpolluted source.
and oftentimes we focus on the supplies as supposed to the pollution aspects.
Asset management is a key ingredient to success.
We need to fix the things that were important
and we need to maintain the things that we fix.
For example, we were just discussing in many of these major metropolitan areas
and I’ll use Delhi as an example, 60 percent leakage occurs in the system.
So therefore if the Delhi population increases
and you need a hundred million gallon new water treatment plan,
they’re essentially building 160 million gallon treatment plan.
So, if you were to proportion that, that’s a 60 percent increase
that really accomplishes very little. Integrated water management.
You hear this term time and time again and, you know,
it’s very unfortunate for us because we act as consultants.
But sometimes we deal with the industrialize side.
Sometimes we deal with the domestic side.
Sometimes we deal with the stormwater run off.
We need to look at these systems in an integrated fashion,
its water, wastewater, stormwater.
Points us, non-point. You can ruin an entire supply
from an agricultural perspective in a basin.
So these issues need to be viewed from an integrated management perspective.
Last but not least, public awareness in education
is significant, reinforce with enforceable regulation.
But I will tell you in the United States where I’m from,
the EPA was formed because of outrage and the water loss both in Europe
and in the United States and a lot of the developed countries
are not driven anymore by regulation but they’re driven
by people wanting better water and better quality of life.
So those are some solutions that we find that work around the world
and many of the issues and challenges that we deal with.
Tom you mentioned that a city like Delhi might lose
in its water system 60 percent.
We were talking in the… that Peter made the point
that all the European cities like London you might lose 30 percent,
all the success stories I hope that that can be emulated the city water systems
instead have solid this out.
Absolutely and there’s kind of a jewel in Asia here
and then it happens to be in Singapore.
We do a lot of work in Singapore and their water losses
are less than 5 percent and that’s a very effective thing because
Singapore’s expanded supply it only has to expand its supply
1 times 0.05 as supposed to 1 times 0.6. But that’s an example.
So these are the things that you can fix? -Oh absolutely.
Absolutely. But as I said once you’ve fixed it,
it needs to be maintained and repaired because it is a vital infrastructure
component that can be very successful in terms of what it does
if it’s maintained fixed and operated well.
Chief Minister over to you.
Talk to us about the policy framework and the regulatory framework
that India is putting in place and that it made you stay,
made you stay like Karnataka is putting in place
to ensure better management of land and water?
I bring to all of you warm greetings from India,
the land of Lord Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi.
They have friends to this great source as much element to today’s session
on sustaining shrinking planet. Lord Buddha has said,
“Where is the root cause of all the sufferings?”
Mahatma Gandhi has said,
“This planet can meet all of our needs but not to a grid.”
If we understand and follow this spirit of teachings of Lord Buddha
and Mahatma Gandhi, this planet not only sustain
for minimal centuries without shrinking but will be a better place
for the future generation to live and let live.
We have been dying inspiration from our ancient civilization and culture.
We believe in the concept of…, meaning the planet earth is one family
or philosophy first reaches,…, meaning let everybody be happy.
I am sure we’ll agree with the need that these words of wisdom
should be the guiding principles of humanity for realizing the goal
of sustainable development.
In the industrial or economic development will certainly bring change
in the near… but…
We need to strike a balance between development and the impact on environment.
Now let me talk about what my Karnataka State in India is doing in this direction.
Fortunately, Karnataka is blessed abundant natural resources
along with talented human resource.
They are documented or mission and sustainable…
disease in Karnataka region in 2020.
Karnataka is a… in bringing many policies
and taking several introduce in implementing action plans.
Some of them are promotion of green energy through
a special renewable energy policy, promotion of organic farming,
increasing green cover protecting ecological sense it to mountain ranges
and animal centuries, scientific management of solid waste and recycling.
We have seen the use of surface in round water
and rainwater are vesting both in rural land and urban areas,
blending of biofuel and diesel in the public transport busses.
Transport, more transport system.
Friends, I would like to thank the World Economic Forum
for giving me this opportunity to lend interaction with the new champions
and to share my thoughts with the audience.
Let this annual meeting of the World Economic Forum keep reminding us
constantly ever duty towards the positively and welfare of the next generations
while we plan on the developing project.
It will be useful to have similar sessions at national level.
Also need to design and implement sustainable development projects.
We, our role in this regard is critical, a wise decision a grand success.
Thank you Chief Minister. -Deputy Ren, we had from Prime Wen yesterday,
somebody’s numbers of course just kind of stag at the rest of us,
that the Tianjin areas economic growth is he has expected to be 16.6 percent.
The city is now, a city of 13 million.
How enough are you coping with that scale of economic growth
so as to your manage your natural resources and meet the needs of a population
that isn’t just growing inside but will input me perhaps
is going in terms of the expectations of the quality of life that it deserves?
So in order to express my idea here I would like to in Chinese, you know, okay.
Actually I very much agree with Mr. Searle and I think that the water crisis
and the water management crisis co-exist and for the government
we need to manage water resources and to make good use of the water resources.
and Tianjin has a very rapid economic development
and last year the GDP growth rate was 16.5 percent
and in from January to August it increased by 13.8 percent while Tianjin
is a city with water shortage and while we are strengthening
the government management of the water resources until we have
adapted three measures to increase our water management.
Firstly, we increased input on water treatment especially
the sewage water treatment and in the city we are going to master
in building up 67 sewage water treatment plans and we targeted 95 percent
of the sewage water being treated properly and this is also a target set
by Prime Wen when he visited Tianjin.
And secondly we also need to introduce technologies,
for example the desalination technologies.
If you’ll visit the Binhai area you may found a lot of plant
which have adapted this technology.
We have introduced already from Singapore to desalinize seawater by 2015.
We will be able to achieve a one-third of seawater desalinization.
and then we also have the water diversion project diverting water from the Yellow river
into… river to Tianjin so that the water shortage in Tianjin
can be to some extent elevated.
We also use lots of measures to control those water gabling industries developments.
For the industry policies we want to develop high quality
and high tech industries development to avoid those industries
and businesses to use a lot of water.
In the meantime we have also done publicity in education
and campaigns particularly for the school pupils and middle school students.
We actually have textbooks
which a specific in area of water saving and conservation. Thank you.
If anyone is here from the Government of Singapore incidentally,
I would say you’re having an extremely good session seeing those compliments
keeping paid to the city’s states economic management and resource management.
I was very interested in Ren’s comments particularly when he was talking about
the diversion of the Yellow River to – or diversion of the Yellow River sources
to sustain some of the demand in Tianjin.
and I’m just gonna throw this and anyone can pick it up.
Bram you were talking about the importance of free trade particularly
in agricultural commodities to make sure that the benefits are spread around
and their crops particularly suited to be grown in a particular place
than everyone benefits, if it’s grown there and then trade it around the world.
Do any of you think there is a role for trading water incidentally?
If you go back to the 19th century there was a very significant water trade
in frozen water from the vast country to Italy and from Massachusetts
to the American descent, President of Iceland you’ve got a lot of frozen water.
You could sell it lows in prices.
Yeah we have a considerable amount of frozen water of the glaciers,
there’s a lot in Europe but we are also of the lots of fresh water that’s in Europe.
and as an indication of the changing world and water trade,
we are now discussing with Saudi Arabia
who receive tankers regularly from Saudi Arabia. -Fantastic.
and they are a previous generation of tankers which I already showed
to our business and so the investment has been paid but they can be revisited
with rubber balloons and so on in site.
and they will come to the Iceland cargos and the balloons will be filled with water.
That will be then be transported to Saudi Arabia and I think that is –
although it’s a very good for us as a business to sell the water
which otherwise would just flow into the ocean to Saudi Arabia.
I think it’s a warning to all of us.
It’s a warning to all of us that there is already on,
a very active raise for access to the water…
just not decades from where we are now but already.
So when my country and the local municipalities have to revisit the harbor
in order to be able to show up the Saudi Arabia water tankers,
we are indeed in a new world
and what you asked about trade and water is already with us. -Excellent.
This being a World Economic Forum the session already I can tell you that
40 email messages have gone out from our audience in which they want to know
investment opportunities in trading water
but I thought that was fabulous, very, very interesting.
Peter and Bram I’d like you to and Tom perhaps you can comment on this too.
These are areas of intense passionate public concern.
and some of the things that we’ve touched on this morning clean
and safe water supplies, a sense that families deserves to know
that the water that they’re drinking is safe to their children.
Bram you mentioned GM crops as an issue.
Peter you’ve been talking about just the kind of shortage of clean
and safe water for people.
At the same time many of the solutions that you’ve suggested
though they sound rational,
insensible for one reason or another apolitically contentious.
I mean for example some of the trade issues that you touched on Bram.
So my question I guess is this, is civil society an NGO’s
on the pressured group on your side in thinking through solutions to these issues
or do you find that you constantly bat heads with them?
Bram, do you want to go first? -Thanks for the honor.
Yeah, you’re the farmer. -Well, first, first I’ll start this on NGOs,
I mean I think NGO did very well and they really have done a good job
in the past to what bringing points to the attention of the people,
the public and also keeping lots companies on that dose.
and so I think it really served the purpose extremely well, nothing against that.
I think there’s a “but” sentence coming.
Well, I’m not sure and I’m an engineer so kind of, yeah.
But I think -- I mean if you heard yesterday this building,
it has being built in nine months and I can tell you that there are standards
for this building how it should be built. How strong it should be?
How the foundation should be to build this enormous building in Tianjin.
Why can’t we find ways
and means to do the same with the things we talked about like food?
Is it so difficult to agree what real sustainability is of palm oil?
Is it so difficult to agree what is more important, food, fuel?
Is it so difficult to accept three deaths row because there are areas of surplus
and there are areas of deficit? I don’t think so. -Right.
So, again and I’m an engineer, I’m not a politician but I think this is the problem.
I don’t think that yet everybody is aligned try to find solutions
rather than protecting its own turf
and I think the time has now come that we can no longer do that.
So we have to together and that is all the stakeholders
so that is the NGO is included and the companies and the government,
we all have to work together to find solutions before it is too late.
Peter do you want to comment on?
Yeah, I mean when you think rationally then of course you’re right.
The problem is that we are not living in a rational world.
We are living in an emotional world and in a political environment that just
does not produced a framework which would allow the rational thinking to prevail.
When otherwise we would have the Doha Round time for many,
many years to go on with this discussion which at the end of the day,
can expect to diverse simply issue of water and agriculture.
That’s why the Doha Round has been blocked. -Absolutely.
Now, having said this,
I would like to find the way out perhaps from a different angle.
I think governments in general and with due respect again when
I listened to the explanation of how city like Tianjin can try to solve its problem.
Normally I inclined to talk about the supply site.
How can be supply the necessary water? There’s only one hiccup to this.
There is no necessary water available anymore.
There’s a supply site constraint. -Right. -Okay.
Now I heard then yes but then we have the possibility of desalination,
one surd that just took note, one surd.
Well let me just show you a little bit the relationship between energy and water.
You need 2 to 3 liters of oil to produce 1,000 liters of desalinated water.
You need 9,100 liters of water to produce 1 liter of biodiesel.
You see the two things don’t work.
It is just from a mathematical point of view.
It does not work in the long term.
I even now like some energy it doesn’t work.
Take California, we trusted twice to go around here.
In California, we have the problem of water.
So pumping the water from the down the ground
and moving it to over the mountains in order to be able to irrigate
to produce the crops which enough to which it should produce partially again oil,
California is using more than 20 percent of total energy production
just to move the water around.
So it chose you again and those are not the solutions.
They are the solutions which normally governments because it is big project,
they like to prefer.
But we if we want to find the solution for the water overuse,
we have to go to the mount side. -Right. That’s important one.
and we have -- we have worked out, you know,
we have created the 2030 water resource group together with the World Economic Forum
and we have made the demand curves for 154 water basins and we have elaborated
and caused the doubt everyone of those solutions that there are
and we are starting to work with governments.
As a matter of fact that’s just a very important meeting
we said the Chief Minister of Karnataka where we’re going to work with that.
We are working now with 14 governments on the demand side.
I think that’s where we have to find the solutions.
That story of California of course gives me an idea for film.
I’ll drop… a note. If we have any people from the audience got a reference.
Tom, very quickly and then I’m gonna go to questions.
You know, we talked about this border energy,
food sustainability nexus and let me give you an example of where those can work
and I am talking the Middle East.
There is no more contentious place than the Middle East.
But they have water shortages.
There are growing crops out there that require water.
and they have political issues.
But there’s a project that they call red to dead. -Right, right. -Okay,
you have the Dead Sea here and you have the Red Sea here.
and the Dead Sea needs salination and reverse osmosis is biggest problem
or desalination is the salt content and reverse osmosis also has
an energy issue but the head between the Dead
and Red Sea fuels the membrane plant, the brine to the Dead Sea being thus depleted
and guess what, the Palestinians, the Jordanians and the Israelis
have more water than they had yesterday. -Right than they needed.
This is an example of the things that can work
and I try to focus on things that can work and their solutions that are all over.
You just need to look for them in an integrated fashion but that’s an example.
President Grimsson, do you want to comment quickly?
Well I think what this discussion has brought out is that if we continue
to seek solution locally or even national, we are not going to succeed because
we have to acknowledge that this has become so interdependent on globally.
How we use water to supply and so on and so forth that we really need to
establish an internationally recognized unaccepted regime
which describes what to do with the local level,
the national level and the international level.
Otherwise, you could get wars over water as you mentioned in the beginning.
You could have a very effective rise
with countries trading in water as I indicated before.
and I believe this is possible. I believe this is possible.
Hundred years ago I travel almost primary localized.
Now, we all agree that we in order to for us to travel to this great city,
we need a highly regulated the discipline, the international air traffic system
that we all subject ourselves to.
Our countries participated at a local level and at international level
and I believe it has -- is now urgent to try to create such an international regime
for water and I believe politically it is relatively easy
because you don’t have to explain to an ordinary cities in
anywhere in the world why water is important. Everybody knows that.
So therefore, the task is here now to create the political climate and the method
and the will to take the next two or three years to create
an international regime because if we wait 10, 20 or 30 years,
we’re going to lose this path.
Let’s get the questions and the first question that I have right here
in the front is Arjun Thapan, Senior President Advisor
to the Asia Development Bank, President infrastructure in Water in Manila,
the microphone will be coming to the front row now.
Thank you very much Michael.
Some very interesting perspectives on the panel on the issues
as well as the solutions but if I may just raise two points.
One on the water food energy climate change nexus that Peter referred to.
I think we all understand that water is a very local issue
and that we need to get this concept or this nexus, this relationship,
the set of relationships understood that local levels so that we make
the right planning choices when it comes to allocating water and to using water.
How do we do that? I mean it’s not – it’s not been drilled into local understanding
that there is a relationship such as this and that we need to look at
as Peter just said about demand and supply side is useful
for example in the planning and budgeting choices that we make.
Second, we’ve been talking about water as a social and an economic good.
But my view is that the social aspects of water have really swung far out
if you will characterize it as a pendulum.
When can we start thinking about the economic pricing of water?
Because if you don’t I actually anticipate problems.
I mean the WRG 2030 report has said that we are going to be 40 percent short of water.
Fifty percent in countries like India.
How were the investment costs of closing that gap going to be met
if water is not going to be treated as a business?
Final observation Mike since you spoke about praise for Singapore,
of 6 to 9 million dollars every year in a city of 1.5 million,
right with at last tariff increase in 2001 and Manila my next favorite
which is where I live where we now have 15 percent non-revenue water,
24 by 7 service and WHO stand at water quality.
I think I’d like to place that on record just as a set of examples
which we can all learn from. Thank you.
That’s -- there’s two stories from Manila where absolutely fantastic.
But there’s another question in the front row.
I just want to go very, very quickly to Peter now on water pricing.
Is that part of the solution?
When I did my first work on water 25 years ago in California,
agriculture water was being sold from the imperial irrigation system
at something like $10.00 acre foot
and it was actually costing about $400.00 an acre foot.
I mean that the price differential was ridiculous.
Is water pricing and market mechanisms for distributing water part of the solution?
I think so. You have to immediately say
that you have this emotional issue first which you have to handle.
That’s a human right.
A human right cannot have a commercial price.
and this we have to recognize.
So for me to ask that the 5 liters of minimum per capita plus the 25 liters
let’s say about the 30 liters which has to recognize just recently given
as a human right, this can be excluded from the pricing of water.
But this one is the smallest part.
It’s about 1.5 percent of total water the usage that we have.
So take this in part and find ways – I mean South Africa has found a way
6,000 liters of water free every liter after which you pay.
Okay, fine. But you can handle that one.
Let’s get this emotional aspect out of the way because up to now the cost
that they move forward, it’s a human right, therefore it cannot have a balance.
All right. -Okay. If we have to separate this one,
that’s a human right 1.5 percent of water is throughout
the rest should have a price,
needs a price otherwise we would make wrong decisions.
The gentleman in the front row. Microphone right to the front please, right here?
Thank you. I’m Mohamed John from Kuwait.
My question is to Mr. Searle.
You made the distinction between a water crisis and the water management crisis.
If we know what the issues are, are you optimistic that this crisis
can be solved as the politicians will find the will
and the courage to price water or to face up to the big questions.
I have just one question for President Grimsson,
have you given any thought to the price that you would charge Saudi Arabia
for a tanker of water will be one tank of oil or two?
Well, I am optimistic and I’ll tell you why I’m optimistic
because it is a resource that’s finite and I use that example
with the Red to Dead Sea project.
But think of what I just said if a certain mega city weighs 60 percent
of the water through leakage with no pricing or conservation,
I mean that’s just an unsustainable future.
So the reason I say it’s a management crisis is I think once a finite resource
that is squandered and not utilized efficiently that’s not sustainable,
so things will be put in place.
For example these mega cities will tighten up their systems as in Nampa and other places.
Secondable, there will be conservation as there is in a lot of countries
in the world especially in the Middle East.
I’m very familiar with the water rates in your country.
You know desalination cause a lot of money. Why don’t you reuse it?
So that I am very optimistic that management will prevail
on a scarce unmanaged unpriced vital resource for human health and welfare.
I’d like to bring back Chief Minister and the Deputy,
I’ll ask them whether they see in the state and the city increased popular almost
political pressure to manifesting itself in terms of demand for ground water,
clean water, more secure water supply? I mean are they becoming political crisis?
Is that becoming a political question in Karnataka?
Our government has initiated the plans of setting up
water resources regulating authority.
They ensure the improved water resources allocation such as computing water uses.
We also look at water tariff development across various types of water uses.
It is also indicating incentives for efficient water use.
The state government has made rain water harvesting compulsory bungled.
They also brought legislation to regulate ground water despite issue.
and also as they develop basin level, they are promoting the integrated
water resources management principles…
It is a support from the Asian Development Bank
but right now with a yearly support.
They are preparing the feasibility study,
though this we hope to improve water use efficiency…
Thank you. Mr. Ren? -Yes.
and just Peter talked about the desalinization on the contradictions
in the energy efficiency into usage,
and actually we have some typical example in Tianjin.
We have Beijing Power Plant and they actually desalinize these seawaters
under the contract to salt from the seawater and they also make good use
of the waste in this process and this is a cyclized process
and the final product is the salt to chemical product.
Actually this product has already being completed
and it shows a kind of an integrated utilization of the water resources.
So I agree with Mr. Searle, we need to have an integrated viewpoint
about the water resource and water management
and this may help us to save the land resources as well as the water resources.
and in Tianjin, we have a single authority to take care of the water resources.
We used to have many departments regulating the water management.
and also we have fixed the different water prices
for those highly water consuming industry.
So we tend to charge them on a higher rate. Thank you.
May I ask you directly is this an issue of popular political concern?
Do you hear from the people in Tianjin about water?
Is this a key – is this a key quality of life question?
Yes, it is a key, you know, issue for us.
So we need to hear from the people for the pricing, the water pricing. -Right.
Yes, because of, you know, different price,
no copy we see in a different of people, different companies.
Interesting. More questions? Yes, to the lady in the middle?
I actually have a question for Chief Minister Yeddyurappa.
So it was very assuring to hear from you about your philosophy of Buddha
and Gandhi but my question is how, I would like you to comment
on India’s national policy of building like a damn like Faraca
and now the plant damn in… which are going to result like massive
droughts in Bangladesh in summer and massive floods in the rainy season.
I would like you to comment on this. -Very interesting.
I think the President and the Vice want to comment too but Chief Minister you go first.
We are trying out very best to control these other things
and we are planning to stop these things.
Mr. President you wanted to comment too because you actually raised the question
the Himalayas yourself early right at the beginning.
Olafur Ragnar Grimsson: Exactly, this is a concrete proof that probably
most likely cause of military conflict in this part of the world is our water.
We have a highly regulated international system and the nuclear power.
We all know probably debates about that.
But there is no way to cheat forcing the countries
and the Himalayan region to cooperate on the water resources.
So, what India does can have a tremendous impact
on Bangladesh but no mechanism to deal with it and to take it further
what the United States of Europe in terms of CO2 emission in the next 20 or 30 years.
We’ll have a tremendous impact on the water systems in India,
China and all of these countries.
So the urgency of this is such and the interdependency is so clear
that as we have comprehensive disarmament grievance,
as we work during the Cold War for missile agreement for so on and so forth,
my fundamental view is that we are not going to sufficiently deal
with this water crisis on a local or even on national level.
We need to work very hard for an effective regulated, strict and forcible,
and forcible international regime.
One example with India and Pakistan would be escape oil
the trade between Saudi Arabia and Iceland in water.
Two good very good example of how the world has fundamentally changed.
and Tom just to get a pick of a point that you made earlier before
when you are taking about Dead to Red project,
you can look at the whole of what it used to be called the lament
of the Holy Land Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, certainly Egypt,
outside the Nile Valley as one huge problem of heredity
and water supply but almost no transnational mechanism to put it all together, correct?
That’s correct and that’s why there’s project that really made feasible sense
took almost 50 meters to get everyone to agree on it and as a president said
he is talking from a much more macro sense about carbon,
the Himalayas conflict, India, Pakistan, China.
I mean so you can take the Red to Dead on a small scale
and scale it up or you can also scale it down because I believe that there’s
a lot of things that people can do
instead of waiting for the world to come together on strife.
People are looking at –
for example in Tianjin looking at the basic integrated approach.
I think the Mayor said something very interesting.
He had 20 organizations dealing with water and came down to one.
That’s a hugely positive step that goes a long way to make the problem
would be like a bunch of countries getting down to one agreement
and that’s what you did in the water arena.
So, there are things that we can do.
But it isn’t just transnational cooperation that’s needed.
It’s also recognition by individual nations that the policy does have global impact.
I mean Bram you and I were talking very briefly about Brazil
just a few minutes ago, a classic example of a nation
that has been forced as it were to recognize that it’s national policy
on nine years have international implications.
Yeah and they have made huge progress in the last years in agriculture
and there’s still a huge amount of opportunities there for crops
that can grow very efficiently, very efficient use of water
and yeah going extremely well.
They should be proud of themselves. -Very good.
Well, one thing I think we can guarantee in the issues that we have discussed
this morning in terms of the efficient and effective use of management
of water resources so that
as Peter said everyone’s basic human right to water is guaranteed,
the efficient and effective use of increasingly scarce of our land
so that food is -- the supply of food is secured for an ever growing population.
I can guarantee that we all have more sessions on those topics
at World Economic Forum meetings and at other places over the next few years.
So I’d like you to join me and thanking our panel for an absolutely
terrific morning throughout the discussion event.