Towards a green economy

Thousands of km3 per year 8

1,122 6 4

2 0

621 810

4,935 3,350

1,322 882

2010

Municipal Industry

Agriculture

2050 BAU

G2 Demand

Demand reduction from green investement

Water demand

Conventional surface and groundwater supply not from green investment

2050 G2 Supply

Water saving due to efficiency improvements

Desalinisation -from green investments

Conventional -from green investment

Figure 25: Water supply by source and water demand by sector (km3 scenarios

), under BAU baseline and G2

(2050) (See Figure 25). In accordance with the higher availability of fresh water resources in the green economy scenarios, the fraction of population under water stress will increase to 60 per cent in 2020 and stabilise in the long-term to around 62 per cent in 2050, compared to 67 per cent in the baseline. Water-sector employment will reach 40-43 million in 2050, which is 24 to 19 per cent below BAU owing to the reduction in total water consumption, but it is still 30 to 38 per cent higher than the 2010 level. In the short-term, employment will remain about the same, 34 million in 2015 under the green and BAU scenarios. It is worth noting that investments in the water sector could have considerable impacts in developing countries, where interventions to improve sanitation would considerably increase access to potable water, and higher expenditure

2050 38 2,084 4,369 6,611 1,530

in infrastructure could result in more efficient use of water and increasing agricultural yields - contributing to poverty reduction, especially in rural areas.

In the case of lower precipitation in the decades to come, water stress is projected to be higher and to have more serious impacts on, among others, agriculture production. More specifically, with precipitation being 10 per cent below BAU by 2050, water stress is expected to affect nearly 70 per cent of the population in 2050. Under this scenario, green investments will reduce water stress by about 6 per cent, reaching 64 per cent.

Waste In the green economy

scenario, a total of

US$ 118 - US$ 198 billion per year on average is invested in the waste sector

to increase

the waste collection rate and promote recycling

and the projected composting economic practices. development The

higher collection rate of wastes (around 82 to 83 per cent between 2010 and 2050) as well as

in

the green scenarios are projected to increase the total usable waste volume in BAU and green scenarios by 2 to 3 per cent in 2020 and 9 to 12 per cent in 2050.

However, owing to the significant

improvement in waste recovery (e.g. recycling rate is 7 per cent in green scenarios, 2.2 per cent in BAU and additional BAU cases in 2050), the annual amount of waste directed to landfills in the green scenarios will be much lower than the BAU scenario by 2050. Thanks to the improvements in upstream waste treatment, its employment will reach 25-26 million jobs in 2050, which is 2-3 million higher than under BAU (the employment gain in 2020 is 0.4-0.54 million). It is worth mentioning the contribution of recycling to reducing energy demand and emissions as well as production costs - positively affecting industrial GDP.

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