On World Water Day (22 April), Marianne Martínez Riekes, lawyer specialized in environmental law and founder of Green Diosa, shares her vision on a topic as vital, relevant and controversial as water. Water is an element of nature that is essential for human beings, biodiversity and for all living beings that inhabit this planet. We need it to survive, for domestic use or personal hygiene. It’s important for agriculture, industry, power generation, transportation or the mere enjoyment of the sea, rivers and lakes through tourism. Besides being necessary, it’s also what constitutes us: our bodies are approximately 70% water.
At the same time, it’s abundant as the earth’s surface is covered with 71% water. However, it’s also scarce: of the total water that the planet has, 97% is salty (seas and oceans) and only 3% is fresh water. Then, 68.7% of that 3% of fresh water is in the solid state (ice) at the poles, 30.1% is groundwater and 0.9% is contaminated water.
In other words, of the total fresh water on the planet, only 0.3% is accessible and suitable for human consumption.
Water is, therefore, a limited, fragile, irreplaceable natural resource and essential to guarantee human survival, the conservation of ecosystems, and to make sustainable socio-economic development possible. Hence the necessity to protect it locally and globally to ensure its current and future availability and equitable distribution.
Such is its importance that the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) recognises water and sanitation as human right. It’s a human right to have sufficient, healthy, acceptable, accessible, and affordable water for both personal and domestic use. This does not imply that it should be free for users. Recognition as a human right makes people the lawful holders of that right. This is a legal obligation for different countries.
It’s possible to claim through the courts if access to water is not participatory, universal, does not respect the principle of non-discrimination or does not guarantee its minimum access.
- Access to drinking water
3 out of 10 people in the world lack access to drinking water; 6 out of 10 people lack access to sanitation facilities (UN).
Water scarcity affects 40% of the world’s population and this percentage is expected to increase. If that happens, up to 700 million people could be displaced by 2030 due to water stress.
- Water is listed on Wall Street. What does it really mean?
In 2020, water began trading on the Wall Street futures market. An index was set, a suggested price of the value of the water-based on the supply and demand of water. The futures market is a financial tool where products are traded (e.g. oil, gold, soy, wheat). In a futures contract, the seller and the buyer agree on a price and a future date for the purchase of a specified quantity of a certain product.
In this particular case, what is listed is not the water but the contracts relating to the future value of that water.
It’s not an exchange of goods as happens with oil or gold, for example. We are talking about “water use rights” where they are usually granted through concessions or licenses by public administrations. This makes a difference in relation to other futures markets.
The question that arises is: are all the people on this planet guaranteed the conditions of access to the futures markets?
Many economists claim that this influences more efficient water management. In other words, if the price rises, it can encourage users to save on their consumption. However, the opposite could also happen: if the price falls in the futures market it would imply excessive use without a conscience.
Water belongs to everyone and is a public utility. Can we – and do we want – to leave it in the hands of those who pay more and not necessarily in the hands of those who need it the most?
