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WATER POLITICS

Via Prensa Latina, summary of a recent worrying UN report on water supplies:

Water supply in the countries of Africa and the Middle East could be halved by 2050 due to the population increase, according to a report released at the 18th Conference of the Parties (COP18) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Dr. Hazim Qiblaui, from the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Qatar, who presented the research, said the lack of water will increase the dependence on desalination plants in those areas.

Such plants generate emissions of greenhouse effect gases and they will have a major impact on marine ecosystems, he said.

For that reason, the expert called for responsible water consumption, which in these countries is 15 million cubic meters per day.

In what is a new blow to the skeptics, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed that temperature rise is a human responsibility in about 90 percent.

At COP 18, it is debated a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, a document that establishes a 5.2 percent reduction in the emissions of greenhouse effect gases in the period 2008-2012.