Should access to drinking water be at the top of the global agenda?

Dr. Liam Fox says having clean drinking water could soon become the greatest problem facing the world in the 21st century, but it doesn’t have to be. He told a crowd gathered at the Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City on Friday that looking for long-term solutions should be a global priority.

When Fox, former secretary of state for defence of the United Kingdom, attended events sponsored by the United Nations, what alarmed him about the international organization was its priorities. Gender equality outranked individuals having access to clean water as a priority, he said. Having clean water made available for individuals worldwide is ranked sixth on the U.N.’s development goals .

“It seems to me, if you’re putting access to clean water below gender equality, you’re missing the point that if women have to go large distances to get water as part of the daily routine,” Fox said, “they’re never going to get equality. They’re never going to get proper education.”

Fox said ensuring global access to clean water would require approximately $150 billion in funding every year until 2030.

“We expend $107 billion a year on cosmetics, and we spend (over $1 trillion) a year on global alcohol sales. So, in fact, we’d give everybody in the world clean water and sanitation for a tenth of the world bar order. ... Isn’t it an astonishing thing to think of when you start to think about it in those terms?”

Following his service in political office, Fox has dedicated his time and research to water. He cautions that water will become the biggest problem facing the 21st century if we, as a global population, don’t begin looking at long-term solutions. This is the subject of his recent book , “The Coming Storm: Why Water Will Write The 21st Century,” which will be released in the U.S. on Oct. 1.

Part of the concern regarding the future of water access is its effect on geopolitical security. “There are 56,000 large dams in the world,” Fox said. “China controls 28,000. If there is real competition for water resources, you can imagine A) the points of conflict that may come, and B) the mass migration that may follow if things are not following a reasonable trajectory.”

Simply put, people will go where the water supply is. If nothing is done to preserve water and a shortage occurs, Fox says one of the “biggest risks” that will follow is mass migration — a migration never before seen in human history, he emphasized. He also likened China’s control of water to the recent completion of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in Africa.

“Ethiopia (is) now entirely able to control effectively the flow of the Nile down to Sudan and Egypt. There’s no reason to suggest they have any malignant intent in that. But the power is there, and when the world effectively allowed that to happen, Beijing noticed that they became an upstream power with no resistance, pretty much at any level,” Fox said. “So there is that security concern.”

“We need better geopolitical cooperation for international treaties on shared waterways,” Fox added.

But water scarcity doesn’t have to be the world’s demise if responsibility is taken regarding water use — on a global and individual scale. Fox shared the example of the watershed issues Israel has faced in the past and how, as a country, Israel made effective changes.

“When it got to the point that the Sea of Galilee almost got to a position that would not have been recoverable, (they) introduced very drastic controls on water, (and) managed to get much greater recycling of water. Israel is 86% water recycling at the present time.”

He told the Deseret News that water is an issue that shouldn’t be the responsibility of only one side of the political spectrum.

“I think it’s too important for either of those to be allowed to own it. This is an issue that affects people of all politics and no politics, people who don’t even know what politics is,” he said. “I think it’s a basic human duty. I think my own view is our No. 1 human right is access to clean water and to sanitation. Everything else is second. You can live without democracy if you have to. You can’t live without water.”