The food, water, energy nexus. Striking rates of economic growth notwithstanding, 550 million people remain hungry in the Asia and Pacific region, 65% of the population has no safe piped water, and more than 600 million people live without electricity.
Overcoming these problems requires a combined approach in which food, water and energy are treated as a nexus, rather than as separate, standalone issues, which has too often been the case in the past. This is a tough task. While food, water, and energy are complex enough issues on their own, the interplay amongst them makes finding solutions even harder. For example, food and energy production requires massive amounts of water. Asia uses up to 80% of its water on agriculture at a time when demand from burgeoning cities is surging and water production, particularly for irrigation, is dependent on electricity and fuel. Current population, economic, and weather trends add to the tangle. Our earth is a common good. The Stress Nexus: Ensuring Water, Food and Energy Security.
By Ruth Cairnie, EVP Strategy and Planning, Royal Dutch Shell Last year, Shell released Signals and Signposts, which analyzed long-term energy scenarios and concluded that we are in an era of volatile transitions at the economic, political and social levels.
The stresses building in our global systems, such as water, food and energy production, will make industrial and social transformations inevitable. We must acknowledge the links between these stresses and “connect the dots,” before it is too late. According to the United Nations, by 2050 our planet will be home to nine billion people, and three in four people will live in urban centers. Asia’s new and fast-growing cities will absorb much of that growth. We will see a shortfall with the world’s freshwater supply if we continue to consume freshwater in the same way as today. It is also predicted that the world’s increasing population will drive a 50% increase in the world’s food needs. Photo: Some rights reserved by futureatlas.com. Signals-signposts. Shell - Stress Nexus smart solutions. The Energy Water Food Stress Nexus.
The Energy Water Food Stress Nexus The world’s water, energy and food systems are tightly linked.
Water is needed to extract energy and generate power; energy is needed to treat and transport water; and both water and energy are needed to grow food. In the coming decades, this relationship, known as the energy-water-food nexus will come under great pressure and is appearing on the agendas of governments, NGOs and businesses. TIM BROWN CEO of IDEO PETER VOSER Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell PROFESSOR KEVIN NOONE Director of the Swedish Secretariat for Environmental Earth System Sciences PROFESSOR JUDITH REES (Chair), Director of the Grantham Research Institute and the ERSC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy TALKS FOCUSFact card - virtual water INTERVIEWS NEWSNexus thinking to alleviate global water, food and energy pressures full article » Video exploring expert's opinions on the connections between water, energy and food. full article » full article » full article »
Can Shell's 'stress nexus' change the conversation about natural resources? When the opportunity presented itself to interview a senior executive from one of the world’s major oil companies, my initial inclination was to pass.
I’ve watched oil companies enter and exit the global sustainability scene over the past 25 years, and I haven’t been impressed. They arrive with an aspirational slogan — Beyond Petroleum, People Do — along with a CEO speech extolling the company’s commitment to a better and responsible future. And, as if on cue, environmental and human rights activists decry the messaging as disingenuous at best, fraudulent at worst. And away we go. Then something happens — an incident or lawsuit involving indigenous people in developing countries, a spill or other “event,” or maybe just the ephemeral cycles of marketing campaigns. But something about Royal Dutch Shell piqued my interest. It’s not that Shell has been exempt from controversy. Next page: Visions of 2050. The Energy-Water-Food Nexus: The Emerging Challenge to Sustainable Prosperity. Stress-nexus-booklet.