Transforming The Economics And Governance of Water

Global Voices

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By Mariana Mazzucato, Founding Director of UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose: Water-related crises around the world have shown current systems of governance & economic organization are unsuited for world altered by global warming.

For the first time in our history, human activities are jeopardizing water at its very source. Climate change and deforestation are reshaping the monsoon season, causing ice on the Tibetan plateau to melt, and affecting freshwater supplies to more than one billion people. Rising global temperatures are changing evaporation patterns and reducing moisture feedback from forests, disrupting downwind rainfall. And a destabilized global water cycle is itself aggravating climate change. For example, the depletion of water in the soil and forests is reducing their ability to sequester carbon.