The Call for Papers for the World Resources Forum 2012 has been published. Deadline for submission of abstracts is 30 April. Full papers are not required.

The Call for Papers for the World Resources Forum 2012 has been published. Deadline for submission of abstracts is 30 April. Full papers are not required.

Collecting inputs for the Bonn2011 Nexus Conference preparatory process

The question of how to effectively use our water resources has been debated for decades, yet what we need more than ever is direct action at the field level.

We have left behind an era in which energy, food, water, and other resources have been relatively cheap and plentiful. Rising demand is carrying us into an age of higher and more volatile prices for energy, food and raw materials. Political tensions in the regions traditionally supplying the world’s oil have added to the uncertainties. Climate change is amplifying these stresses, and will do so increasingly. These risks post a serious threat to growth, through price shocks and inflation. Their political consequences could be more serious still, with some tempted to see a zero sum competition for resources between consumers and between nations.

Ludgate Investments Ltd., a London-based private equity investor, is seeking to raise as much as $300 million to finance waste-recycling and water-treatment businesses through a second resource-efficiency fund. “The value proposition is resource scarcity and the fact that wastes have now become commodities, providing strong returns,” Chief Executive Officer Gijs Voskamp said in an interview in London. “There is no other way than becoming more efficient with resources.”

“Rising interdependence of water, energy, food resources raises security concerns while resource problems that cross boundaries have scaled up in recent years.”

Do we really understand - or think sufficiently about - the “Energy-Water-Food Nexus”? That was the concern shared during a searching Singapore Energy Summit plenary session on Monday.

Resource security matters for India. It has to simultaneously secure energy, water and other minerals to support economic growth; meet basic needs for food, fuel and water for a growing population; and manage the environmental constraints and consequences of increased resource use.