UN predicts acute water shortage as early as 2030

A new UN report warns that by 2030, global freshwater withdrawals could exceed available supplies by as much as 40%. The organization has also called for a review of systems for managing water supplies.

The report, covered by The Guardian, says the main causes of this water shortage are climate change, population growth and increasing urbanization. As the world’s population continues to grow and more people move to cities, demand for water is rising exponentially. At the same time, climate change is reducing the amount of water available as droughts and extreme weather fluctuations become more frequent.

Water shortages threaten, among other things, the energy sector and prices in energy markets. In Europe, for example, these are strongly affected by the water cycle in the Nordic countries and output from their hydropower plants.

Norway, for instance, also expects to sell less domestic electricity abroad in the future. France has also faced energy shortages in recent months, partly due to a lack of water. Last summer, this also caused problems for fossil-fuel power plants, when it was temporarily impossible to use the Rhine’s waterways to transport coal. Cooling nuclear power plants could also become a problem.