Mostrando artículos por etiqueta: climate

Climate change will affect the availability, quality and quantity of water for basic human needs, threatening the effective enjoyment of the human rights to water and sanitation for potentially billions of people. The hydrological changes induced by climate change will add challenges to the sustainable management of water resources, which are already under severe pressure in many regions of the world. Food security, human health, urban and rural settlements, energy production, industrial development, economic growth, and ecosystems are all water-dependent and thus vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Climate change adaptation and mitigation through water management is therefore critical to sustainable development, and essential to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Climate has shaped all of human history but has received concerted and sustained scientific attention only in recent decades. The new understanding shows that climate is not unchanging but variable, sometimes abruptly so. This variability results from both natural processes and human interference (largely inadvertent). The associated social and economic impacts are uneven and create winners and losers—among nations, private enterprise, and individuals. This emerging awareness has triggered a growing, often heated, political debate.