Experts share resilient responses to energy transition
Against the backdrop of a recent survey in which the world’s top climate scientists stated that they expect global heating to blast past 1.5°C target, thousands of delegates from almost 200 countries descended on Bonn, Germany, to discuss the most pressing climate issues and to set the agenda for COP29 this November.
The transition to clean energy is essential to slowing climate change. We’re entering a new era with Net Zero, transitioning from advocacy, piloting, and early stage investment to placing low-carbon energy production into a larger context so we can scale up efforts and meet national and global targets. What if water was the missing, unrealized asset for the energy transition? Perhaps clean energy is too important to be left to climate mitigation policy specialists alone.
Concerns about the water-use intensity of biofuels, hydrogen, and thermal power like nuclear power systems are credible and serious. Examples of the risks for ignoring how water can unlock and secure clean energy are abundant, from shifts in the viability and reliability of hydropower resources from Central Asia to North America’s Hoover Dam, to drought impacts on the nuclear cooling reservoirs in France and Japan, to competition between energy and agriculture in many countries.
We brought together a panel of experts on the sidelines of the Bonn Climate Change Conference to find out how to best do this. Ahead of the event, co-organized with GIZ, their managing director Ingrid-Gabriela Hoven stated: “Water must be a cornerstone of the global climate discourse.” The aim of the session was to outline a path towards COP29 Azerbaijan and the 2026 UN Water Conference to ensure that the political momentum needed to simultaneously address the global water, climate, and energy crises is not lost.
Holistic approaches for the intertwined crises of water, climate, and energy demand
The first speaker, Elke Hüttner, Head of Department, Climate Change, Environment, Infrastructure, GIZ highlighted water as a key lever for a clean energy transition and across climate mitigation; with water-related measures currently accounting for at least 10% of man-made emissions. She went on to promote water management as a resilience multiplier for achieving adaptation and mitigation goals as well as a just energy transition. Hüttner ended with a call for action to mainstream water in global energy and climate discourse. Without this, we cannot achieve 1.5°C goal or feed the world in the decades to come - such action will require alliances from government, society, and the private sector in the water, energy and climate sectors.
Dane McQueen, Senior Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UAE echoed Hüttner’s call for multilateral action and emphasized the importance of water to achieving climate commitments made at COP28. He noted that there is significant ‘implicit’ water content across the declarations made at COP28. Given that this will be an important issue of interest to the UNFCCC in coming years, McQueen urged organizations and experts to present themselves as available resources to support parties to manage water in climate and energy planning.
Water can be make or break for the clean transition
Energy production is – and will remain – highly water intensive. A study to understand exactly how water intensive the energy transition and other climate mitigation measures are is being worked on by the United Nations Water's Expert Group on Water and Climate Change, in collaboration with the International Universities Climate Alliance. Dr. Greg Leslie, Director, Global Water Institute, University of New South Wales shared the initial findings during the event: the study estimates that water requirements to implement measures to meet Paris mitigation targets could be 900km3; equivalent to 30% of current global irrigation water use.
The study also urges policymakers to assess the water requirements of clean energy and carbon sequestration measures as they prepare the next round of their nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
Read a blog post from the United Nations Water's Expert Group on Water and Climate Change >
Water and climate action on a national level
Mike Rinker, U.S. Department of Energy, Senior Technical Advisor to Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy shared in a pre-recorded statement the extensive work being undertaken in the United States to improve coordination and to invest in technical solutions for water-energy and emissions reductions. This work includes a coordination office for the Nexus of Energy and Water Sustainability and a National Office for Water Innovation program. The work is ongoing and the Department of Energy are currently developing a strategy at national level for water, energy and carbon and partnerships for implementation.
Following Rinker was Mr. Muzaffar Shodmonov representing the Republic of Tajikistan who began by reiterating that Tajikistan considers this topic, which sees the balance of water, energy and agriculture as critical to future development, very important. Shodmonov focused on the opportunities that energy and the development of hydropower cna provide, and and how to manage these for resilience. A concrete solution underway in Tajikistan is the connecting of renewable energy across the grid, including to powering electric cars and other measures.
Tomás de Oliviera Bredariol, International Energy Agency noted policy levers and trade-offs for improved water-energy management. Highlighting one opportunity in particular: water savings in cooling our power systems – changing ‘once through systems’ to recirculating systems or dry cooling. He did note that this method requires more energy to pump air instead of water, which is a trade-off and cost that must be managed. De Oliviera Bredariol emphasized that shifting to solar and wind power can be a water saving opportunity, requiring less water (for cooling and washing) than fossil sources. This shift requires, however, management of water demands for energy storage and grids to enable sustainable transitions to solar and wind power as primary energy sources. Improved water management for critical mineral development and pumped storage hydropower will be critical frontiers for the energy transition.
Watering the clean transition across borders
The ongoing work to mainstream transboundary water management and WASH in NDCs was highlighted by Sonja Koeppel, Executive Secretary, UNECE. Water impacts and opportunities are implicit in energy and climate plans, NDCs, and can impact shared basins; particularly in the development of bioenergy and hydropower. Regional water-energy cooperation will be crucial, and a big area to develop, to address this need effectively. She noted the need to come together better as communities to find synergistic solutions, as well as existing UN initiatives such as the taskforce on water-energy-food nexus and the Water Convention.
Closing remarks were shared by Mario Lootz, from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and Mr. Mir Movsum Dadashev from the Azerbaijan State Water Resources Agency. Dadashev noted a number of actions underway in Azerbaijan including energy development focused on solar and wind; a comprehensive water management strategy and a national water strategy which prioritizes sustainability of the natural system and enhancing resilience of water supply. He answered earlier calls for more work between governments and other stakeholders by stating his willingness to collaborate.
Lootz emphasized: working through national climate commitments like the NDCs are critical – especially if we can view tradeoffs between the water, energy and climate nexus. He ended on a positive note - phasing out coal will save us a lot of water. We are moving in the right direction, and we just need to ensure we need to consider water to ensure a successful energy transition.
The session showed three areas where we can work to accelerate the transition to water-secure clean energy:
We need to explicitly plan for energy investments to be able to share critical water resources with other sectors and needs, such as agriculture, ecosystems, and cities. Energy systems have the economic force to potentially hurt less-represented sectors and groups through the medium of water, such as smallholder farmers or ecosystems.
We need to plan across regions and types of clean energy generation to build clean-grid resilience. Wind, hydropower, and solar are all sensitive to environmental conditions, so that we need to prepare our grids to manage tradeoffs and synergies between modes of production. In some cases, this may also need to include adjacent investments that are also intertwined with energy and water consumptions, such as data processing and storage systems and AI-processing facilities.
We need to ensure that each clean energy investment is not just reliable and effective under current climate conditions but capable of being resilient as the climate continues to shift. Storage, sourcing, and operations should be adaptable to new and emerging climates.
This session showed that accelerating, sustaining and ensuring resilience in economies and societies powered by clean energy requires updated understanding and approaches to manage water. Both new and tested sources of low-carbon energy typically have water deeply embedded in their production. Investment and planning processes must consider this both on site where water impacts will be realized as well as at scale. This is necessary to navigate resilient pathways to manage water demands that follow exponential growth in mineral mining and pumped storage hydropower.
Water may just be the missing link: critical for scaling and successfully implementing Net Zero policies at COP29 and beyond.
