Photo credit: Tejj
The world is “living beyond our hydrological means”, the UN Secretary General has warned, saying overconsumption, pollution and climate change are driving freshwater use beyond the rate at which it can be replenished. António Guterres told ministers at the opening of the ministerial segment of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York on 13 July that the effects on many river basins, lakes, aquifers and freshwater ecosystems are permanent and irreversible.
SDG 6 under review
The warning carries added weight because this year’s forum is conducting an in-depth review of Sustainable Development Goal 6, the commitment to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030. The forum ran from 7 to 15 July, with the ministerial segment over its final three days, and 36 countries presented voluntary national reviews.
Guterres called on governments, the private sector and communities to fill gaps in finance, innovation, infrastructure, capacity and governance, and to build institutions that can secure clean water and sanitation for all while managing conflicting demands. He acknowledged real progress over the past decade on access to safe drinking water and sanitation, but said the hardest part of the journey to 2030 lies ahead. On the UN’s figures, more than two billion people still lack safely managed drinking water and around 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation.
The evidence behind the phrase
The Secretary General’s wording echoes a report published in January, Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era, which argued the world has entered a state of water bankruptcy where demand and depletion outstrip replenishment. Its lead author, Kaveh Madani, briefed reporters at a forum side event, arguing that water security matters even to governments focused on domestic production, since nothing can be made at home without it.
The report contended that wetland degradation and shrinking glaciers are not merely signs of stress but symptoms of ecosystems past the point of recovery, with knock-on effects for food prices, employment, migration and geopolitical stability.
The wider evidence
Separate analyses point the same way. The World Bank has warned that scarcity could cut Middle East GDP by between 6 and 14 per cent by 2050. In Europe, heat and drought have lowered levels on rivers including the Rhine, disrupting shipping and industry. Decades of drought have strained the Colorado River in the United States, forcing unprecedented cuts.
Attention now turns to the 2026 UN Water Conference, co-hosted by the UAE and Senegal in Abu Dhabi in December, which Guterres framed as a critical opportunity to drive collective action. The UAE has launched the Abu Dhabi Global Water Platform, a $2 billion initiative targeting water security for 10 million people by 2030, backed by $1 billion from the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.
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