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PARIS, France, Dec 09 2015 – An official of the Global Water Partnership (GWP) has warned that climate change threatens water resources and puts the world’s development goals at risk.
Dr. Nicole Bernex, GWP’s Technical Committee Member based in Peru, was speaking at a GWP-organised press conference at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) which ends here on Friday.
“Last year, in the COP20, we remember how IPCC (Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change) makes clear that water is in the eye of the climate management storm,” she said.
“This year, in September, in New York, with the approval of the agenda 2030, it has been given priority to a goal on water security for all.
“In October, in UNCCD COP12, in Ankara, the nexus between soil, water and biodiversity has been strengthened. And last Wednesday, in the COP21, more than 400 institutions between governments, national and international donors, national and trans-boundary basin organisations of rivers, lakes or aquifers, in different parts of the world signed the Paris Pact on Water and Adaptation, Strengthening Adaptation in Basins of Rivers, Lakes and Aquifers,” she added.
Global Water Partnership was one of the signatories.
Dr. Bernex is advocating the convergence of the three UN Conventions, the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris agreement, “recognising also the power of a strategy based on Integrated Water resource Management – IWRM – to create synergies, and its high potential especially at the local and regional level to integrate processes, as in the South American Water, Climate and Development Programme (WACDEP), in Santa Eulalia, Peru”.
She said actions will be based on four pillars that will contribute to the objectives of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and promote coherence on water related adaptation. These are capacity development and knowledge generation; including climate change in integrated water basin management planning; reinforcing governance; and ensuring adequate financing.
