Water is too cheap, encouraging wasteful use and leading to shortages that could have catastrophic effects on the world economy and the <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/tags/middle-east/" target="_blank">Middle East</a>. That's the finding of a landmark report by a commission including the President of Singapore, the founder of <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/tags/egypt/" target="_blank">Egypt</a>'s Bibliotheca Alexandrina, ministers and economists. It warns that water shortages fuelled by climate change and overconsumption could wipe 8 per cent off the rich world's GDP and knock off 15 per cent in developing countries by 2050, amounting to a loss of trillions of dollars and a far more severe hit than the world economy took during Covid-19. We spoke to the panel's executive director Henk Ovink, a former water envoy for the Dutch government who also advised former US president Barack Obama on the recovery from Hurricane Sandy. He said the Middle East is one region where water scarcity is “top of the agenda” because “nobody needs more instability”. “In a fragile social and geopolitical context, any vectors of disaster – floods, drought, pollution, biodiversity loss – are literally trembling the foundations,” he said. Shortages are driven not only by the excessive use of water in settings such as data centres and coal-fired power plants, but also by damage to soils and forests that results in less rain being stored naturally and ultimately recycled back into lakes and rivers, the commission says. A key recommendation of the report is that water should be priced at a level that “reflects the true opportunity cost and scarcity” of the Earth's resources. It says the “widespread underpricing of water today encourages its profligate use across the economy”. “The good thing is that with sustainable land use management, resource recovery, sustainable water use, reuse and recycling, making sure that biodiversity loss is curbed and starting to restore our biodiversity and maintaining it, we actually are ticking many boxes,” Mr Ovink said. Our full story <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/climate/2024/10/16/using-too-much-water-thatll-cost-trillions-of-dollars/" target="_blank">is here</a>. <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/climate/2024/10/14/why-the-west-must-prepare-for-climate-migration/" target="_blank">Climate migration</a> – people being forced from their homes when the area becomes inhospitable – is a buzzword of environmental debates. But little has been done on the ground to alleviate a potential refugee, a UN refugee agency official told <i>The National</i>. “There's a lot of discussions going on here at very important meetings,” said Andrew Harper, special adviser on climate action to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, at the World Economic Forum. “But, what we do not see in the field is actually the translation of these commitments into tangible adaptation and resilience for those communities most impacted.” Africa has witnessed the world's worst climate-linked refugee crisis, often hand in hand with armed conflict. At least nine million people are currently displaced due to increasing violence, insecurity and extreme weather events, <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/climate/2024/10/16/using-too-much-water-thatll-cost-trillions-of-dollars/" target="_blank">such as drought</a>. Governments in the developing world have been forced to divert crucial funds for services to react to extreme weather. Refugee camps are often the most vulnerable to the elements, and images of tents being washed away by floods and high winds have not translated into help on the ground. “The government and populations have to build their resilience, which means that those resources are diverted from elsewhere,” Mr Harper told us at the WEF <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2024/10/17/wefs-dubai-summit-reminds-us-of-the-case-for-knowledge-collisions-in-a-complex-world/" target="_blank">meeting in Dubai</a> this week. Our full story is <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/property/2024/10/17/much-talk-but-little-action-on-climate-refugee-crisis-says-unhcr-official/" target="_blank">here</a>. <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/2023/08/19/former-uae-residents-plan-to-protect-coral-reefs-from-climate-change/" target="_blank">Coral </a>has been bred to survive intense marine heatwaves for the first time. But scientists stress it is not a “silver-bullet solution” to protect reefs from the effects of <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/tags/climate-change/" target="_blank">climate change</a>. The breeding programme proves it is possible to boost the heat tolerance of adult coral offspring in a single generation, said researchers. However, the improvement was only “modest” when compared to future <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/climate/environment/2024/04/19/is-there-hope-for-coral-reefs-in-peril-from-climate-change/" target="_blank">marine heatwaves expected under climate change</a>, they added. And selective breeding to withstand short periods of heat stress did not appear to enhance the ability of offspring to survive long-term heat exposure, they warned. Study author Adriana Humanes, a research associate at the Coralassist Lab based at Newcastle University in the UK, said the study represents the first time that corals have been “selectively bred” to enhance the survival of adult colonies when faced with marine heatwave stress. “Our study shows that assisted evolution via selective breeding is feasible, suggesting that current global efforts to develop assisted evolution techniques are warranted,” she told <i>The National</i>. Gillian Duncan's full story is <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/climate/2024/10/14/coral-bred-to-withstand-heat-for-first-time/" target="_blank">here</a>. How often does an insurer get a $1 billion bill for a natural disaster? Last year it happened <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/climate/environment/2024/10/15/chart-of-week-natural-disasters/" target="_blank">37 times</a>, a record, according to financial company Aon. It warned companies they would have to become “more resilient to climate and catastrophe risks”. <b>Host Country Agreement: </b>A country organising a Cop summit signs one of these with the United Nations. It basically makes the conference venue a patch of UN territory, patrolled by its blue-uniformed security staff. After Cop29 in Azerbaijan comes Cop30 in Brazil next year. Australia is bidding to host Cop31. Our full guide to understanding climate jargon <a href="https://are01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenationalnews.com%2Fclimate%2Fcop28%2F2023%2F11%2F09%2Fcop28-net-zero-15c-our-guide-to-climate-change-jargon%2F%3Futm_source%3DThe%2BNational%2Bnewsletters%26utm_campaign%3D0a087136ba-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_07_09_02_20_COPY_01%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_-138f6bcf16-%255BLIST_EMAIL_ID%255D&data=05%7C02%7Ctstickings%40thenationalnews.com%7Cb940f92a8f494e15214d08dcb784c305%7Ce52b6fadc5234ad692ce73ed77e9b253%7C0%7C0%7C638587028058444781%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=C0aDmz0PQstPfYS6a4wYC%2BuytR%2FCyOFAuTpOu4Kg9bE%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">is here</a>.