The first Global Stocktake, which concluded at COP28, laid out an ambitious roadmap for Parties to get back on track to achieving net zero by 2030. These efforts include: tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, accelerating efforts globally towards net zero emission energy systems, utilizing zero- and low-carbon fuels, accelerating zero- and low-emission technologies, accelerating and substantially reducing non-carbon-dioxide emissions globally by 2030 and conserving, and protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems. Each of these activities have significant, but often hidden, water requirements that must be carefully considered.

Hosted by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) and building on the momentum of the first ever COP Presidency event on Watering the Clean Energy Transition at COP28, this high-level session at the start of the Bonn Climate Change Conference presented the latest global estimates of water requirements for clean energy and sequestration measures and discuss how to address water requirements in preparing the next round of NDCs, and will outline a path towards COP29 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.