Water is vital to climate and nature protection. Will it last?

As global heating shifts the planet’s water cycle out of balance, lives, nature and economies are under threat.

The climate crisis is at a critical juncture, and there is a missing piece in the debate that requires urgent attention: Water.

Often overlooked in climate discussions, it in fact is indispensable to achieving the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperature rise to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Failure to act on water-related issues imperils our ability to make progress on reducing emissions. And adapting to climate impacts is largely about managing water-related extremes.

In a year marked by extreme events from China to India to Libya that show the worrying new trend of “once-in-a-century” or “unprecedented” floods and droughts becoming the norm, it is evident that the water cycle is spinning out of balance.