It's stunning what's coming: We're headed to a worldwide Water Disaster, experts say

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In the shadow of COP29, The World Economic Forum has released a report, “7 facts about the global water crisis and water resilience that COP29 leaders should know.” It is stunning how troubling some of the analysis is.

“The global water crisis is escalating and knocking the water cycle off kilter, with huge implications for economies, societies and the planet,” the study concludes. “We can see this through increasingly frequent and devastating droughts and floods, which are local manifestations of a destabilised hydrological cycle.”

In particular, more than half of the world’s crops are grown in areas where the amount of water has dropped, and in some areas recently hit by severe drought, it is bracing as to whether most of this water will not come back. One effect of this is that a quarter of the world’s cereal production is at risk.

Low-income nations hit hardest
The net result of the drop in water available for human activities due to climate change is that high-income countries could post an 8% drop in GDP by 2050. For lower-income countries, this will be between 10% and 15%.

The infrastructure needed to stop damage to water systems will be $1 trillion a year, with many factors showing that this is going to fail. Not the least of these is the lack of anxiety about global warming shown at the COP29 conference in Azerbaijan.

The final observation of the report states the obvious: That water disasters are more frequent and more costly. One only has to visit the west coast of Florida.