Yahoo Finance Matt Damon: Climate change will be worse for ‘the most vulnerable’
The world must dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to avert the worst effects of climate change, according to an urgent report from the United Nations released this week.
Among its recommendations, the report calls for improvements in agriculture and land use that would "help us adapt to climate change, and secure livelihoods, food and water." The mention of water preservation acknowledges the dual threat that climate change poses for worldwide clean water access: it worsens the problem and it threatens to undue recent progress made toward solving it.
Speaking to Yahoo Finance, actor Matt Damon — the co-founder of a water access philanthropy called Water.org — said climate change risks "backsliding" recent success in expanding worldwide access to clean water.
"What we know is that the people who are going to be affected worse and first are the most vulnerable," said Damon, the co-author along with Water.org co-founder Gary White of a new book entitled "The Worth of Water."
"It's something that we're definitely thinking a lot about — also backsliding on the gains that we've made," Damon added. "These events show us how fragile all of these systems are."
Across the globe, at least 2 billion people use a drinking-water source polluted by feces, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Plus, more than 2 billion people live in water-stressed countries at risk of losing access to clean water — a figure likely to grow amid climate change, the WHO predicts.
But progress has been made in recent years. In 2015, 70% of the global population had access to clean water, according to a report from Our World in Data. Five years later the share of the world with water access had risen to 74%, the report said.
Water.org, a nonprofit that makes small loans that allow people in developing countries to access and provide clean water, has reached 33 million people since its founding in 2009 and 6.6 million people last year, according to the organization's website.
"Making more communities more resilient is something we need to do," Damon said. "That's something this work aims to do."
White, a civil engineer and co-founder of Water.org, echoed the concern over the effects of climate change.
"People around the world are gaining more [water] access every day," he said. "I think the challenge is how much of that is going to be put at risk with climate change."
"That's why it's so important that we look at adaptation in terms of climate change, making sure that people have more resilient water services," he added. "And for those that aren't connected yet, to get them on the water grid."
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