|
Day & Date: Saturday, 26th September 2009
Introduction:
Water is crucial for the economy and human survival. Virtually every industry relies on it to grow and ultimately sustain their business. Yet water for human consumption and use is becoming scarcer globally and every indication is that it will become even more so in the future. Decreasing availability, declining quality, and growing demand for water are creating significant challenges to businesses and investors who have traditionally taken clean, reliable and inexpensive water for granted.
Global warming will lead to “changes in all components of the freshwater system,” and “water and its availability and quality will be the main pressures on, and issues for, societies and the environment under climate change. Climate change also aggravates the water crisis increasingly felt in many places around the world. This situation requires a response that goes far beyond the targets of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The dimension of Water is fairly neglected both internationally and domestically. The session was dedicated to discuss on Water Laws and Climate change negotiations, thus emphasizing the links between ecological and social concerns, emergencies and development, global threats and local experiences, local engagement and national and international advocacy
The session started with a brief introduction of Prof. Phillipe cullet, by Mr Linu Mathew Philip, Executive Director Centad.
Prof. Phillipe Cullet is a Reader in International Environmental Law in school of law. Member, centre of south Asian studies & SOAS food studies centre. He also chairs the centre of law, Environment & Development. He has got expertise in Law and environment, law and natural resources, intellectual property, water, human rights, international law, India.
Linu also welcomed the participants and raised the issue of diverse impacts that Climate change will have, including impacts on human health, natural systems, and the environment.
Presentation by Prof Cullet & Discussions:
The availability of water in general and in specific contexts is a primary issue in the development of laws and policies related to water. Water is so important to human life that availability is only one of a variety of important elements that condition water regulation. Implications of climate change on the water sector are both pervasive and complex. Increasing water use, social, economic and physical scarcity, inequalities in access to water (intra-village, intra-city, rural-urban), increasing importance of groundwater, decreasing water quality (drinking water, surface/ground-water) are some of the important factors that add in to the devastating effect of climate change. In addition, provision of sufficient water of adequate quality to all, providing comprehensive legal framework, based on legal, not economic principles, clearly separating ‘law’ and ‘policy’, introducing legal principles where missing (e.g. inter-sectoral allocation of water) are some of the challenges in water sector.
Prof Cullet said that drinking water is not a very critical issue as this is only the 5% of the total water use, and this will not be a problem for many decades as there is sufficient for drinking. But because water is pivotal for health and livelihoods, inadequate access to water may be a significant cause of poverty and conflict. Poor access to clean water for drinking cause ill health, poor access to water for agriculture and other livelihoods may be a cause of material deprivation.
In terms existing water policies the amount of sectoral allocation of water is multi-dimensional and there is no policy which talks about water protection as there exist one for environment. One of the big problems in water sector is that individual governments carry and apply different laws but there is no big picture of water law per se. Many reforms have came in last 10 yrs and all these water sector reforms are based on the ideas that water has to be used more efficiently, but as water is also considered an economic good all the rest, the social, the environmental, the health aspects are sidelined. Also , Prof added, that there is no legal framework which decides that what does it really meant by saying “Efficient use of water”. Different states have different framework to define water, its usage, priorities and its allocation. For example if a farmer wanted to buy water from other sector there is no framework which could guide us that how it could be done. Also for example, water comes from Uttaranchal down to some states, and increasing water demands in these states will also affect lives of people of Uttaranchal, and environment as well, these are some of the issues which need to be addressed. There have been a lot of developments in policy development either by lawyers or non lawyers working in water area, not policy in that broader sense but a policy adopt so as to keep a general framework for the development of a particular area. Over last 15 years there has been a lot of emphasis in India on adopting water policies at national level and at state level and in many contexts these policies are understood as legal framework that regulates water, but these policies, in constitutional terms, are non binding, this enmeshes the two, the policy and the law in water sector.
Talking about access to water, prof cullet explained, how people get access to water is surprisingly complex and varied. That access involves natural conditions, human tools and social practices. Water law has been built around considering water as a natural resource and historically emphasis on water was given as input for economic development for example the first irrigation act that was adopted in late nineteen century is to channel water to grow crops which are more profitable and there was no issue of drinking water, health, environment in the legislation that were adopted. Over time there has been change but problem is that there exist strong links between access to water and land ownership. Water is considered as a private property of the person who owns the land. Another very important issue is that not all sectors like drinking water are covered in water sector. There is no law which states that how much water we are entitled to in terms of the basic fundamental right to water that exist in the country and also there no binding for the water quality standards, if a person wants to know that what is the quality he/she is entitled to there is no standard to refer to. There are also lot of other issues which get unresolved as different states adopt policies. Also one of the important causes of climate change is that no water law, national or international, recognises that for all the kind of water we are using is largely dependent on rainfall that means it is largely dependent on global climate.
India needs reallocation of water among sectors, which has already started but on a very informal basis in few states, and also there is a need for reforms because Existing legal framework is in part old and incomplete. External donors have used those informal reforms as a point of entry to put in their own agenda in the legal framework. In development project there are commitments that may be partly driven by the external agenda.
The reforms in policy and law, Incentives for reforms like domestic incentives, e.g. water table falling at increasingly faster rates (? groundwater legislation) and External incentives, e.g. World Bank/ADB conditionality (? water regulatory authority legislation, water user association legislation) is needed in a country like India. There is no direct subsidy for water as we don’t pay for it but we pay for its access so there are indirect subsidies in terms of subsidy for electricity etc. Also State efforts should not attempt to pre-empt local prerogatives, but rather endeavour to inform, guide, and assist local efforts Environmental change, in particular climate change.
There are also reforms that are in practice in the country which are Spate of state legislation, focus on efficiency of water use, participation in terms of putting water in the hands of non government actors may be private, civil society or community but the issue arises there after is that, in India there is already an institution system or organised framework governance which is the Panchayati Raj but the international policy makers assumes that there is no institutional framework that exists, and it needs to be formed and the problem with the new reforms that are coming under the name of participation is formation of a parallel institution and duplicates the institutional system which results in major conflicts. Decentralisation is also a focus of the existing reforms, giving non-governmental actors more importance than in the past (privatization).
Focus on water as an economic good, focus on efficient water use, ignoring basic principles of water regulation, in particular human right to water, public trust and precautionary principle are some of the limitations of the existing reforms.
What is now needed is the reforms that envisages all the above mentioned issues also India should get the priorities right-drinking water to be a priority in law and to be a fixed priority, human right to water to be effectively implemented (beyond the ‘shell’) and environment should be given ‘real’ priority and environmental law principles to govern water sector (and not a pretext for economic measures). Government (all levels) will always have a central role in water and decentralisation to be undertaken under 73/74 constitutional amendments. Parliament/state legislatures should be given the priority they deserve in law-making, Going beyond sectoral water law to ensure legal framework for inter-sectoral conflicts clearly established, ensuring that water is also considered a national issue besides being a state issue are also some of the ways to tackle the intense problem.To adapt to climate change, water law and policy will need to embrace fundamental reforms that emphasize water conservation and more efficient and environmentally-sound allocation at the local, regional, and national scales.
Click here to view Presentation.
|
