CCG shares its expertise at COP29 UN Water event

On 18 November, CCG Director Prof Mark Howells was a panellist at the Blue Zone event: “Water for Climate Mitigation” which explored the UN-Water analytical brief on this topic.  Mark’s theme was integrating water into climate mitigation strategies and you can watch the whole session here.   

Mark answered the question “can we meet the NDCs without taking water into account properly” with a firm “No” and then went on to give examples and reasons why. He said that a number of technical organisations and governments are starting to develop integrated tools to allow teams to look at the energy system, land use system and water system all at the same time to respond to climate stress and create integrated mitigation efforts. The energy modelling tool CLEWs is a case in point.

He used an example from Mauritius to illustrate why integration is key: “We were working with Mauritius who wanted to increase the use of biofuels to reduce the use of imported other fuels for economic reasons. We made a hydrological model of the island and ran lots of different climate scenarios through it, with this mitigation measure in mind.  What we found was that the water requirements (for biofuel) are really quite high.  So, if they had gone ahead with producing biofuel, there would be a water scarcity problem. To address this, one of the best things you can do is reduce the amount of desalination that is required.  Desalination is incredibly energy intensive.  So, when we ran the scenarios, what we found was that, looking at mitigation on its own, things looked great.  But you are at risk of creating severe stress in other areas.  If you adapt to that stress as quickly as you can by using increased coal generation to desalinate water, that means you import more fuel (coal) and increase emissions, and the economics of the whole system fall apart.”

Mark said that this was one of the reasons the CLEWs model started to get developed – in order to give this triple perspective.

“The flipside is to look at adaptation and mitigation. Looking at these together can create very interesting synergies.  In Mauritius, doing the desalination with renewables allowed you to store water rather than electricity (which would be expensive as you’d need batteries).   If you desalinate water using renewable electricity and store water instead of electricity, it turns out to be really cheap. So, it’s possible to increase the amount of renewable energy and also increase your water supply and do it in a way that is cost effective, mitigating and adapting at the same time.”

Mark ended by saying: “The potential is really important, not least for things like the GCF (Global Climate Fund) where, often, we think of adaptation OR mitigation but we can think of both.  And water creates this really important strategic link between the two.”