Excellencies and Colleagues,
My thanks to the COP 29 and COP 30 Presidencies for launching and taking forward the Baku Dialogue on Water for Climate Action, building on previous COP 28 leadership in advancing water resilience. The Baku Dialogue is a vital COP-to-COP collaboration platform. An impressive 73 countries and 25 non-state actors have endorsed the declaration. I hope to see many others follow suit.
Globally, as is true for the beautiful Amazon, water is fundamental to life. But humanity is driving climate change and destroying and polluting vital ecosystems. This disrupts the hydrological cycle, with massive implications.
Nearly three billion people face water scarcity. Over 90 per cent of disasters are water-related such as the deadly floods in Rio Grande do Sul. Half of all countries reporting on SDG6 have one or more freshwater-related ecosystems in a state of degradation. As extreme heat grows, we are seeing more evaporation, desiccation and desertification. No community or economy is spared the consequences of a water cycle that is out of balance. Nations clearly understand this, as water is among the top three sectors in all national adaptation plans.
We must take an urgent economy-wide approach across the entire water cycle. We need to involve all sectors and voices including Indigenous Peoples, youth and civil society. Crucially, we must catalyze investments in water, particularly for solutions that lean on nature.
We can drive investment through policy tools such as pricing, regulations, procurement, grants and loans. Through tariff and subsidy structures that incentivize water conservation while supporting the poor. Through accounting for the economic value of water and freshwater ecosystems. And more.
The Water for Climate Action Initiative can help to deliver on such efforts. As host of the Initiative in partnership with the COP Presidencies, the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the World Meteorological Organization UNEP is committed to placing nature, the human right to a healthy environment and access to water and sanitation at the heart of this collaborative approach.
UNEP aims to ensure coherent water-related action across the climate, biodiversity and desertification COPs, to strengthen synergies across other related Multilateral Environmental Agreements and to reconvene the Baku Dialogue at each climate COP.
UNEP will deliver targeted technical, scientific and governance support, and leverage its global networks, including Regional Ministerial Forums because regional and global cooperation is critical. Climate impacts are cascading, compounding and transboundary. They affect water, ecosystems and food systems within and across national boundaries. If nations do not cooperate, they will fail.
UNEP is also implementing the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) resolution on Integrated Water Resources Management. My thanks to the European Commission for providing seed funding and support for the dialogue and for UNEPs work on implementing this resolution.
Excellencies,
At this COP, at UNEA-7 in December and at the 2026 UN Water Conference, we must elevate water as the connective force driving climate ambition, continuity and action across COP cycles.
The time has come to match ambition with investment. I encourage governments, development banks and the private sector to step forward with pledges to finance the Water for Climate Action Initiative. And to help us protect a resource that is central to climate resilience, to biodiversity, to peace and to sustainable development.
