Rethink

HSBC commissioned CWR to write “No Water, More Trade-offs – Managing China’s growth with limited water” where CWR introduced the concept of waternomics.

China’s Foreign Environmental Cooperation Center (FECO), a public institution directly under the Ministry of Ecology and Environment worked with CWR’s team to apply this to the Yangtze River. The resulting policy brief was published in the influential national academic journal “Environmental Protection (Issue 16)”. See the English version: “Waternomics of the Yangtze River Economic Belt”.

We also applied waternomics to the G20. This was featured in the G20 magazine (2016 issue)  when China was the host of the G20 meetings. We were honoured to to be asked to contribute to this G20 issue which had welcome messages from both President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama; other authors included Christine Lagarde, Ban Ki-Moon and Anthony Fauci.

CWR partnered with the Chinese Academy of Science to publish “No Water No Growth – Does Asia have enough water to develop”. This report explored the waternomics of 16 countries and 12 rivers. For the first time ever, GDP generated in major river basins were assessed – this treatment of rivers as assets led credit rating agencies to realise that basin risks can impact sovereign risk ratings. This report was cited in the IPCC AR6, amongst others.

CWR showcased waternomics in action along the Yangtze River in “Yangtze Water Risks, Hotspots & Growth” noting that rampant pollution due to rapid development in China’s socio-economic powerhouse, Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), has led the nation to unleash multiple policy innovations to green the river that could bring shocks and opportunities globally. Watch The Campaign to Clean Up China’s Vital Waterway.

CWR, MEE-FECO & Beijing Normal University co-authored the journal article further deep diving into “Evaluation of Water Resource and Water Environment in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and Relevant Policy Strategy”.

Glasgow COP26: Waternomics was recognised on the global stage as Scotland’s Minister of Net Zero launched a Springer Nature book “Water Security Under Climate Change”. The book designed to help policymakers design effective action included a chapter on “Using Waternomics to Develop & Avoid Systemic Shocks to The Economy” by CWR.

CWR published “Crude Awakening! Fast rising seas threaten seaborne oil & energy security – Spotlight: Japan & South Korea” which showed that instead of providing energy security, oil now threatens it. The entire oil supply chain is in for a crude awakening as almost two-thirds of oil produced globally is shipped by oil tankers, yet stress tests of the world’s Top 15 Tanker Terminals to various levels of sea level rise show that 12 will be impacted at just 1m.

CWR published “Coastal Blackout? Power assets vulnerable to rising seas demand rethink of energy resilience & transition strategies across North Asia” which analysed 849GW of power assets located in coastal regions in China, Japan & South Korea, revealed that fast rising seas could swamp coastal power plants sooner than we think, causing coastal blackouts. Impacts are sizeable – power assets almost equivalent to the national installed capacity of Indonesia are vulnerable to 1m of sea level rise (SLR).

CWR published “No River, No Power – Can Asia’s rivers power growth in a changing climate?” which analysed a third of global power generation capacity to find that escalating climate risks and rivers running dry can strand sizeable portions of national powergen assets. 865GW of power assets are clustered in 10 rivers that flow from our Himalayan Water Towers. Over 94% of these needs water to generate, yet almost 330GW or 38% is located in basin areas that already face ‘High’ to ‘Extremely High’ water stress or are arid.

CWR x IRENA (the International Renewable Energy Agency) jointly released “Water Use in China’s Power Sector: Impact of Renewables and Cooling Technologies to 2030” which examined the expected impact of China’s power sector on water & climate in 2030. Aggressive expansion in renewables can achieve dual savings in water & carbon: water use intensity of power generation can fall by as much as 42% while carbon emissions intensity could fall by 37% by 2030. This brief was used in Clean Energy Ministerial Meetings to accelerate transition.

CWR published a 200 page tome “Toward a Water & Energy Secure China Tough choices ahead in power expansion with limited water resources” which explored strategies towards water and energy security in China as well as the water risk exposure across different power types across China. The report called for an extremely aggressive expansion of renewables to ensure water security. At that time, a 1TW add in wind and solar was unimaginable.

As the ICT sector is also thirsty, we also published “China ICT running dry? The rise of AI & climate risks amplify existing water risks faced by thirsty data centres”. The report reveals 4.3mn data centre racks in China consume around 1.3bn m3 today but can rise to >3bn m3 by 2030. This will put pressure on already stressed water resources, especially as the rise of AI & chatbots could see water use surge by a shocking 20x. This report prompted major banks to start sell-side coverage of water savings tech for the sector building momentum for solutions.

Through partnerships with BNP Paribas, the HKGFA (Hong Kong Green Finance Association), PRI and Tencent and countless one-on-ones, closed door roundtable discussions and seminars which engaged over 1,000 finance professionals, we are pleased to say the ICT sector will be included in Hong Kong’s green taxonomy. Watch a CWR x HKGFA Seminar on “Redefining ICT” featuring Tencent, Bank of America, Bank of China & BNP Paribas.

CWR published “China ICT transition: The good, bad & ugly of 5 HKEX ICT listco’s net zero pledges & climate action”. Tremendous opportunities in carbon cuts and green finance were highlighted – cuts from just five companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (Alibaba, Baidu, China Mobile, Tencent & Xiaomi) can be as much as 2.5x Hong Kong’s annual greenhouse gas emissions and green finance to be tapped for this transition can amount to billions of dollars.