Heavy Water
Heavy Water
Prioritising water COP 27, Tonle Sap's troubles, dry Tibetan Plateau and Asian water crisis, public opinions non-nuclear, City heritage not for developers and US trashes trade.
UPDATE: “Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink” The Ancient Mariner (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1797–1798) was thirsty on his blue adventure, but the woes he faced a washing over the countries of Asia and ASEAN.
Policy makers at COP27 finally prioritised water as a critical resource affected by climate change. Troubling the Water (Sieff, 2023) is a timely and important account of the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia.
Tibetan Plateau is the ultimate source, but what can be done to reduce depletion of glaciers and elevate its importance? Asia has less freshwater, 4,000 cubic meters per person per year, than every other continent on the planet.
The value of the blue economy is maintaining a healthy marine ecosystem and ensuring sustainable economic benefits from coastal and marine resources. Public opinion is killing nuclear power and putting greater pressure on renewable energy from water.
Property developers are blind to the value increases emanating from developing heritage sites in ASEAN’s cities. And, the US is trashing Asian trade in a selfish attempt to regain proportional control over global supply chains.
How Water Finally Became a Climate Change Priority
A collaboration helped convince policy makers at COP27 to finally prioritize water as a critical resource affected by climate change. It was a win long in the making. Last year, the world watched as punishing heat and drought killed peoplein Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and floods destroyed parts of Pakistanand the Philippines. This year, we’ve seen torrential rain drowning sections of coastal California. These events underscore the devastating role water can play in a changing climate, something I have been studying for the last two decades.
Between all these events I attended my first COP—the United Nations’ major climate change conference. My expectations here were mixed; in conversations with members of the water networks with whom I work, it was evident that we would have a lot of work to do to make it a more critical component of the climate negotiations process. Yet, to my joy and surprise, COP27 did just that—policy makers and advocates focused on, for likely the first time, the interactions between climate change and water. The international agreement (called the COP cover decision) that came out of the days of negotiations prioritized the need to focus on “water systems” and “water-related ecosystems in delivering climate adaptation benefits.” This agreement solidified the idea that water is a valuable resource that can help society become more resilient to the impacts of climate change.
This was a huge win. Talks at COP27 also reinforced the need for international cooperation to support countries and communities as they build water security—creating a reliable system in which society has enough clean water (not too much, not too little).
Read full article here.
Troubling the Water is a timely and important account of the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, where a unique and critical ecosystem in the trans-boundary Mekong River Basin directly supports 1.5 million Cambodians and one of the world's largest inland fisheries. Abby Seiff’s new book is based largely on reporting trips undertaken between 2016 and 2017, and investigates the deterioration of the Tonle Sap Lake's ecosystems and natural resources.
"Everyone told us the same thing: the water was lower than ever, the fish were smaller than ever, there seemed to be none in the lake"
The scale of the problems faced by Tonle Sap Lake inhabitants is immense, and these problems are deep-rooted and intertwined in complex ways. Seiff's evocative, poignant and immersive descriptions of people, their stories and life that takes place in tandem with the Mekong's flood pulse. This allows readers to clearly visualize and empathize with the struggles that lake communities face.
In recent years there has been increasing attention to how climate change and hydropower development have contributed to record-low water levels and fish decline in the lake. However, this environmental degradation must be contextualised in a long history of post-conflict dynamics, vested interests and the tensions between conservation and illegal fishing.
Seiff utilizes Zhou Daguan's thirteenth-century account of Angkor, accounts from the French colonial period, Khmer poetry, scientific reports, academic journal articles and media stories from Cambodia. From an academic perspective, the book should be situated within literature analysing the politics emanating from multi-scalar and multi-sector governance and institutional arrangements around the lake, which conseSoutheast Asia's nuclear ambitions dashed by public opinionquently create relatively weak levels of adaptive capacity. Perspectives from political ecology have also been key in unpacking how contestations over access to natural resources produce vulnerability.
Read more here.
How climate change is driving water scarcity in Asia
The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the "Water Tower" of Asia, supplies freshwater to nearly 2 billion people. Experts fear that the region could see a near-total freshwater storage collapse by 2050. By the middle of this century, the entire Tibetan Plateau, also known as the "Water Tower" of Asia, will lose a substantial part of its water storage, a study has revealed. The study is the most comprehensive research on the issue to date, and was published in the Nature Climate Change journal.
The Amu Darya basin — which supplies water to central Asia and Afghanistan — shows a decline of 119% in water-supply capacity. The Indus basin — which supplies water to northern India and Pakistan — shows a 79% decline in water-supply capacity. Combined together, this impacts a quarter of the world's human population.
"In a 'business as usual' scenario, where we fail to meaningfully curtail fossil fuel burning in the decades ahead, we can expect a near collapse — that is, nearly 100% loss — of water availability to downstream regions of the Tibetan Plateau”
A team of scientists from Tsinghua University and two US universities found that climate change in recent decades has led to a severe depletion in terrestrial water storage (TWS), which includes all of the above- and below-ground water, to the tune of 15.8 gigatons per year in certain areas of the Tibetan Plateau. Based on this pattern, the team has predicted that under a moderate carbon emissions scenario — SSP 2-4.5 emissions, the entire Tibetan Plateau could experience a net loss of about 230 gigatons by the mid-21st century.
Read more here.
Averting Asia’s Water Crisis
For many communities around the world, rivers and seas are their lifelines. To meet nutritional needs, fisherfolk haul in marine catches, while farmers need constantly flowing water to irrigate their agricultural lands. For sanitation, drinking and livelihood security, access to clean water is arguably the most vital resource. Asia, however, is facing a snowballing water crisis.
More than half of the global population resides in Asia, with urban population growth expected to rise by a staggering 60 percent by 2025. Yet the region has less freshwater, just under 4,000 cubic meters allocated to each person per year, than every other continent on the planet, barring Antarctica. By 2030, the demand for freshwater will far surpass supply by 40 percent if interventions are not put in place.
The effects of such a daunting water gap are already tangible today. Take India, for example, where over 90 million lack access to safe water and nearly 230 million lack access to improved sanitation, such as proper sewage systems and private toilets. As many households continue to depend on untreated surface or groundwater, the health and economic toll is on the upswing—21 percent of India’s communicable disease cases are linked to water stress.
Indonesia faces a similar situation with groundwater dependence, as less than half of the population had access to piped water in the 1990s, playing a role in the Jakarta’s sinking landmass today. While targets sought to improve coverage to 98 percent by 2017, the real figure stood at just under 60 percent.
As climate change and water shortage collide, communities may become increasingly burdened by frequent disasters, worsening health and a planet sinking in untreated waters. Urgently, scientists and innovators are looking towards the pinnacle of high performance computing (HPC)—exascale computing—to turn the tide in Asia and the globe’s water crisis.
Read more here.
ASEAN Blue Economy
The blue economy is gaining popularity in recent years among coastal and ocean sectors as a management tool for attaining Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular, SDG 14 on Life below Water but also many of the other SDGs. The core value of the blue economy lies in the balance between maintaining a healthy marine ecosystem and ensuring economic benefits from coastal and marine resources for inclusive growth. Popular sectors of the blue economy may include marine ecosystem conservation, sustainable fisheries, ocean energy, marine transport, and coastal and ocean tourism.
In the process for transitioning to a blue economy, sustainable private and public sector finance is a crucial success factor. In this regard, mechanisms to secure long-term funding need to be identified in an iterative manner alongside policy development and sector planning and put in place to support change. Sustainable finance approaches can include public finance mechanisms (e.g., taxes, certification schemes), private sector mechanisms (e.g. increased investment in blue economy enterprises), or mechanisms that combine public and private investment (e.g. blue bonds, debt for nature swaps, payment for ecosystem services or other ecosystem-services based incentive agreements).
The portion of the total ocean economy that is sustainable is unknown, partly because there is no universal definition of the synonymous terms “blue economy” and “sustainable ocean economy”
Various definitions have been proposed by the World Bank, European Commission, the Centre for the Blue Economy, and the High Level Panel on the Sustainable Ocean Economy. In simple but inclusive terms, the goal of the blue economy is environmental, social, and economic sustainability of sectors that impact and/or derive economic activity from the ocean.
There have been various tools developed to guide the efforts towards sustainable finance for supporting the transition to a blue economy, such as the Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles that serve as the global guiding framework for banks, insurers, and investors to finance a sustainable blue economy. There have also been guidance documents issued by various institutions, such as the UNEP Finance Initiative’s practical guide ‘Turning the Tide: How to Finance a Sustainable Ocean Recovery’ and a report on ‘Financing the Blue Economy in Asia and the Pacific prepared jointly by ADB, UNEP/UNDP Poverty-Environment Action for SDGs project (PEA).
Read more here.
Southeast Asia's nuclear ambitions dashed by public opinion
As of 2023, there are 422 operable nuclear power reactors in the world, but none from SEA. After the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl in Russia and Fukushima Daiichi in Japan, nuclear power has had a negative lasting impact on public perception. Whilst some regions have been able to revive the use of nuclear energy, Southeast Asia has yet to see its first operational nuclear power plant (NPP).
“The case for Southeast Asia nations, amongst the challenges, is addressing misperceptions and misrepresentations to strengthen the public acceptance and social license for the reliable, safe, low-carbon energy source”
“There are technical answers to outstanding issues like nuclear waste disposal, but it has taken very difficult traction in the public due to continuous misinformation coming from Hollywood movies and extreme non-government organisations.”
The Philippines is amongst the countries in Southeast Asia with a significantly advanced nuclear power development plan. It is currently exploring plans to revive the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, which has two units of 600 Megawatts electric (MWe). It is also considering the development of small modular reactors (SMR).
Aside from the Philippines, countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand have also explored the energy source. According to the World Nuclear Association, Indonesia eyes larger units, but plans have so far been postponed and are projected to be deployed in 2045. Vietnam and Thailand’s plans meanwhile are either delayed or pending commitment.
Other Southeast Asian countries have also expressed interest or started exploring plans to develop nuclear, but to date, nuclear power remains on the drawing board.
Read more here.
ASEAN cities face uphill battle to preserve heritage
Behind the San Sebastian Basilica in Manila is a high-rise condominium under construction, which has triggered a conflict between developers and conservationists. The unsavoury development also threatens to derail the Philippines’ bid to have the monument listed as a World Heritage Site and preserve the country’s heritage value.
In some other ASEAN nations, like Thailand or Cambodia, which prioritized their tourism agenda to propel economic growth, activists are fighting a losing battle against developers for heritage preservation.
“The impact of this is the commodification of natural and cultural heritage with the results in the loss of authenticity, and sometimes irreversible damage not just to nature but also culture”
But through a combination of grass-root NGOs, interest groups, a wave of new youth thinking and lifestyle, some silver-linings have started to appear on the horizon which could shape the transformation of old and new cities in the years to come.
Not least, heritage and culture will be offered as among solutions to climate change – a dimension that will be featured in the upcoming COP28, according to Catrini Pratihari Kubontubuh, President, Indonesian Heritage Trust and current chair of SEACHA. “The pressure on heritage sites, subject to bulldozing by developers for high-rise residences, hotels and other commercial structures in cities, are enormous”
“Let’s protect everyday architecture like shophouses and farm houses as well as other vintage architecture: railway stations, civil buildings, early modern and mid-modern structures”
The pressure on heritage sites, subject to bulldozing by developers for high-rise residences, hotels and other commercial structures in cities, are enormous.
Read more here.
Asia’s response to US trashing of the rules-based international trading system
The end of 2022 left no doubt that the Biden administration in Washington had joined its predecessor on the mission to trash the rules-based international trading system, of which the United States had been the architect-in-chief in the aftermath of the Second World War. In December, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai thumbed her nose at the WTO rulings against the Trump administration’s steel and aluminium tariffs, which she too had gone into bat for.
And Biden’s team introduced the CHIPS and Science Act that sought to limit Chinese participation in the complex international semiconductor chip trade and production networks. Gone is any pretence of not forcing countries to choose — if US allies remain in the semiconductor business with China, they’ll be hit by sanctions. This is sold as security policy, but with some US companies given a temporary licence to continue to do business in China it looks very much like crude protectionist industrial policy.
In case there was any doubt, the Biden administration then introduced the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act which gave a massive boost to the subsidisation of electric vehicle manufacturing in the United States with large scale buy-in to industrial policy — exactly the issue it has been accusing the Chinese of — and retreat from open trade.
This is a significant U-turn in US economic policy and a major blow to the rules based economic order, of which the United States had historically been the primary defender. It’s a development of systemic importance because, however challenged its economic and social infrastructure, the United States is still the largest economy in the world and the world’s second largest trader. It’s much less important than it used to be in the world economy and global trade, but it’s still the world’s superpower and its innovation and moral authority mean that countries still look to Washington to lead.
From architect-in-chief to enforcer-in-chief, the United States has become spoiler-in-chief of the international trade regime.
Read full article here.