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Reuters
19-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Sustainable Switch Climate Focus: From EU water-saving funds to melting glaciers
This is an excerpt of the Sustainable Switch Climate Focus newsletter, where we make sense of companies and governments grappling with climate change on Fridays. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox for free sign up here. Hello! Water, nature's liquid lifeline, tops today's newsletter as Europe looks to curb agricultural water waste, while large glaciers are breaking apart in Argentina. Further down is a 'Climate Lens' on the rising tensions between India and Pakistan over control of the Indus River, as we wrap up with Britain's Thames Water deepening debt crisis. Let's dive into the European Union's water-saving proposal first. This week, a draft Commission proposal seen by Reuters, showed that the European Commission is considering offering new subsidies to farmers who invest in wasting less water when the bloc's huge farming subsidy program is renewed. The draft EU policy proposal said the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will address the intense pressure on Europe's water supplies from industry and climate change and would include new "transition packages" of advice and funding for farmers to improve their water management. The subsidies could help farmers pay for more drought-resistant crops, or precision irrigation tools that waste less water than traditional irrigation systems. "The Commission will include, under the future CAP, Transition Packages aiming to support and reward farmers engaging in transformational and structural changes to improve the environmental and climate performance of their holdings, including towards a better water management," the draft said. The Commission's draft water strategy said the European Investment Bank will also increase its spending on water sector investments, including on restoring ecosystems like wetlands that can help buffer against floods. The EU's farming subsidies are worth around 387 billion euros, about a third of its overall budget for 2021-2027. EU countries are preparing for tough negotiations later this year, on the next budget. What to Watch A trial is underway on England's south coast, where scientists are harnessing the ocean's natural power to extract CO2 from seawater, which is absorbed from the atmosphere. Click here or the image above for more. Climate Commentary Number of the Week 98.78% That's the percentage of creditors of Thames Water, Britain's embattled water supplier, who voted in favor of the second consent request for its debt restructuring proposals. Thames Water has been battling against a financial collapse since last year and recently appointed KKR to help it raise new equity. Sustainable Switch Climate Focus was edited by Tomasz Janowski
Arab News
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Pakistan army warns of decades-long ‘consequences' if India blocks Indus waters
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan: The Pakistani military warns that any Indian attempt to follow through on recent threats to cut Islamabad's share of the Indus River water system would trigger consequences lasting for generations, as tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors are running high. New Delhi unilaterally suspended a decades-old water-sharing agreement with its nuclear-armed neighbor last month, as it blamed Pakistan for a deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir — Islamabad denied any involvement. The incident was followed by days of cross-border fire as India launched on May 6 a series of strikes across the Line of Control — the de facto border that separates the Indian-controlled and Pakistani-controlled parts of the disputed Kashmir territory. It also hit other sites on the Pakistani mainland, targeting what it claimed were militant positions. Pakistan retaliated with strikes on Indian military targets before a US-brokered ceasefire took effect on May 10. Despite the ceasefire, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced this week that his country would stop the water from flowing — a move Pakistan has earlier said was a direct threat to its survival and an act of war. Brokered by the World Bank, the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty has withstood multiple Indian-Pakistani wars. If India weaponizes water and blocks the flow of an Indus River tributary — vital to Pakistan's food security — its military says it will act. 'I hope that time doesn't come, but it will be such actions that the world will see and the consequences of that we will fight for years and decades to come. Nobody dares stop water from Pakistan,' Maj. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, spokesperson of the Pakistan Armed Forces, told Arab News on Friday. 'It is some madman who can think that he can stop water of 240 million plus people of this country.' India's recent attacks have killed 40 civilians, including 22 women and children, according to Pakistan's official figures. As Pakistan retaliated, it hit 26 Indian military targets. It stopped the retaliatory strikes as soon as the ceasefire was reached. 'Pakistan armed forces are a professional armed forces and we adhere to the commitments that we make, and we follow in letter and spirit the instructions of the political government and the commitments that they hold,' Chaudhry said. 'As far as Pakistan army is concerned, this ceasefire will hold easily and there have been confidence building measures in communication between both the sides.' Both countries have already blamed each other for violating the ceasefire multiple times since it took effect. 'If any violation occurs, our response is always there ... but it is only directed at those posts and those positions from where the violations of the ceasefire happen. We never target the civilians. We never target any civil infrastructure,' Chaudhry said. According to the Pakistani military, India has lost six airplanes and an S-400 air defense system — Russia's most advanced surface to air missile system — in the four-day conflict. Among the downed warplanes were several French aircraft Rafale. Earlier reports suggested India had lost five fighter jets, but Pakistan's prime minister announced earlier this week that there were six. 'I can confirm that the sixth aircraft is a Mirage 2000,' Chaudhry said. 'We only targeted the aircraft ... We could have taken out more, but we showed restraint.' Satellite photos captured after India's strikes on May 6, show significant damage to multiple Pakistani air bases. High-resolution images from Maxar Technologies show large craters on runways and destruction of hangars and support structures at these facilities. Chaudhry said that despite damage to infrastructure, they remained active: 'There are ways through which Pakistan Air Force immediately sets these bases operational — they are all operational.' He warned of a high potential for renewed conflict despite the ceasefire, as long as the core issue, Kashmir, remains unaddressed. Predominantly Muslim, Kashmiri territory has been the subject of international dispute since the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Both countries claim Kashmir in full, and rule in part. Indian-administered Kashmir has for decades witnessed outbreaks of separatist insurgency to resist control from the government in New Delhi. In 2019, the Indian government revoked the region's constitutional semi-autonomy and downgraded it from a state to a union territory under New Delhi's direct control. Indian officials have repeatedly said that the move aimed at tackling separatism and bringing economic development and peace to Kashmir. 'Their policy on Kashmir — of oppression and trying to internalize it — is not working,' Chaudhry said. 'Till the time Indians don't sit and talk about Kashmir, then (as) two countries we sit, and we find a solution to it, the conflict potential is there.'
Times
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
India's water threat to Pakistan revives ancient war tactic
King Hezekiah of Judah would know exactly what India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, is up to. Some 2,700 years ago, Hezekiah's people were at war with the Assyrians. So he issued an order. The fountains were to be stopped. The brooks were to be dammed. Nothing was to flow beyond the land they held. He asked: 'Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?' Why indeed. Shehbaz Sharif, the Pakistani prime minister, might cite a different historical parallel when faced this week with Indian threats to cut off his country's access to the Indus river, and Modi's pledge that 'India's water will flow for India's benefit, it will be conserved for India's benefit, and it will be used for India's progress'.
South China Morning Post
10-05-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Water wars: as India weaponises rivers, Pakistan thirsts for security
Wars aren't always fought with missiles and guns. Sometimes, the weapon is water. Advertisement India demonstrated just how potent that weapon can be this month when it reduced the flow of a tributary to the Indus River, a lifeline for Pakistan 's food security. Weeks earlier, New Delhi had suspended a decades-old water-sharing agreement with its nuclear-armed neighbour in response to a deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir. On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that his country would stop its water from flowing over international borders, saying: 'India's water will flow for India's benefit, it will be conserved for India's benefit, and it will be used for India's progress.' A day later, Delhi unleashed a barrage of strikes on Pakistani territory. Both countries have since exchanged cross-border fire and shelling and sent drones and missiles into each other's airspace, with about four dozen people dying in the violence. Residents inspect the rubble of a building destroyed by an Indian missile strike in Muridke, a town near Lahore, Pakistan, on Wednesday. Photo: Xinhua For Pakistan, a downstream nation reliant on external sources for more than three-quarters of its renewable water supplies, the message of the past few weeks has been unmistakable: water is power, and power can be wielded.
