Download Green Economy Report - UNEP

Towards a green economy
528
Thousands of km3 per year
8
6
4
2
0
Municipal
Industry
Agriculture
2010 2050
BAU
Demand reduction
from green investement
Water demand
Conventional surface
and groundwater supply
not from green investment
2050
G2 Demand
2050
G2 Supply
Water saving due to
e�ciency improvements
Desalinisation -from
green investments
Conventional -from
green investment
Figure 25: Water supply by source and water
demand by sector (km 3 ), under BAU baseline and G2
scenarios
supply and improve access to water will support
the preservation of groundwater and surface water,
contributing to about 10 per cent of global water
demand both in the short (2015) and longer term (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 24-19 per cent below BAU
owing to the reduction in total water consumption, but
it is still 30-38 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 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 composting practices. The higher collection
rate of wastes (around 82-83 per cent between 2010 and
2050) as well as the projected economic development
in the green scenarios are projected to increase
the total usable waste volume in BAU and green
scenarios by 2-3 per cent in 2020 and 9-12 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.