28 August 2024 | 14:00-15:30 CEST | Room C4, Level 2 at World Water Week & Online
Session 11680
Current approaches to macroeconomic planning, forecasting, and development are insufficient at addressing the dynamic and uncertain nature of climate change, and its impact on natural resources such as water. This session will explore a novel approach for economic planning that builds around water as the currency for resilience across sectors.
The past two decades have seen macroeconomic shocks and stresses ranging from currency crises to a global pandemic and mortgage-backed security failures. Adding to this complexity is the emergence of climate change, whose impacts are now driving significant losses across political borders and economic sectors. While engineers and planners have made progress on de-risking particular investments, resilience has not matured into an economic objective that can help guide countries and sectors to persist and even thrive in a dynamic, evolving climate. Prevailing economic models treat water as a fixed or de facto unlimited input rather than a shared, dynamic flow, ignoring the potential systemic risks as new and unforeseen conditions emerge.
One of the insights emerging from groups such as the IPCC is that “water-based adaptation” is a strategic approach for promoting coherence, coordination, and efficacy for resilient programs, policies, and projects across sectors.
Rather than treating water as one hazard among many, we propose water as the currency for resilience in economic planning. Is economic resilience preconditioned on water resilience? This session will explore new interventions and launch a multi-stakeholder and multi-discipline discussion about solutions that meet the scope of the fragility changes we now face.
How to Attend
This is a hybrid session at World Water Week. For anyone attending the conference in Stockholm, simply make your way to Room C4. For anyone interested in joining virtually, you must first register for a free online pass to World Water Week. From there, search the digital program and register to attend Session 11680 - Resilience in Economic Planning and Forecasting: Water as Currency.
Agenda
Opening Remarks - Niels Vlaanderen, Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management
Brief Case Studies
California Investing Now to Forestall Climate Change’s Worst Water Impacts - Felicia Marcus, Stanford University’s Water in the West Program
Case Study - South Africa: The Resilient Transition - Diego Rodriguez, World Bank
Case Study - Water Resilience for Economic Resilience in Spain: A Critical Crossroads - Carlos Mario Gomez, IMDEA Agua, University of Alcalá
Financial Materiality, Risk, and Resilience - Lylah Davies, OECD
Audience Q&A | Lead Moderator - Sophie Trémolet, OECD
How Central Banks are Tackling Water and Climate Risks: Insights from the Dutch Experience
Updates from the Global Commission on the Economics of Water - Henk Ovink, Global Commission on the Economics of Water
Closing Remarks - John Matthews, Alliance for Global Water Adaptation