Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Governments and U.N. agencies meeting at COP26 in Glasgow https://www.reuters.com/business/cop formed a water and climate coalition on Tuesday to address growing hazards and shrinking reserves. Led by the presidents of Tajikistan and Hungary, the coalition will seek to implement reforms which the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization says are needed in the global management of water resources.
The UK and other countries announced a new initiative to help small island states, which are arguably the countries most threatened by climate change. Due to rising seas, many may find themselves literally underwater. The new scheme is called the Infrastructure for Resilient Island States (IRIS) facility. It will help small island states to build up resilient infrastructure. The UK is contributing £10 million in the initial phase.
Water will be on every lunch and dinner menu at the upcoming international climate conference COP26 — but it won’t be on the agenda. That’s not for lack of effort at Copenhagen in 2009, Lima in 2010 or Paris in 2015, where a separate “Paris Pact” addressing water was not formally adopted. Even events hosted by the UN, which formally recognized water as a human right in 2010, tacitly treat water as a commodity. Between droughts, floods, and fires, it should be clear this is not enough. Not only should we measure the changing surface temperature of our planet in degrees, we must count every drop.
