Discussions at Davos- Water

This year, water was a topic of priority- 7 sessions including a plenary. Exremely complex, multiple facets (quality, quantity, use of water etc) big Sense of significant urgency but is eminently solveable problem. Convinced this is as big a problem…

Peter Brabeck and Nevill Isdel set the context –interesting large co ceos are passionately talking about water- both Coke and Nestle have a huge water footprint- but that's not enough-u use 9000 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bio diesel- the big issue is that water is not being valued. We "eat" a lot more water than we drink.

Potential solutions-

2^nd green revolution- addressing 70% of water consumption- perhaps using Biotech and Genetech-

Also we should not make decisions on other issues that exacerbate water situation-eg if we try and solve for the Co2 by increasing water use in creating Bio fuels, for instance, we are making a huge mistake- also currently oil takes about 2.5 liters of water/ liter of oil- if we go after new reserves in heavy oils and oil-sands will multiply by 10-=100 times.(steam injection)-

Last optimistic notes- perhaps market forces? Oman has a system for 4500 years- farmers have access to water that they pay for thro infra and thro money, and those rights are tradeable- every famrer can buy and sell water- the other interesting thing- a certain % goes to mosque for poor people.