Energy demand to increase 30% by 2030; 50% for food
KUWAIT: By 2030, demand for energy and water will increase by 30 percent, while demand for food will increase by 50 percent, said Prof Mauro Centritto from the Italian National Research Center’s Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection as he presented his research ‘Sustainable Agriculture Water Management’ at Kuwait University’s College of Engineering. He also spoke about dry land and degradation neutrality, climate change and sustainable agricultural water management during a forum attended by KU students.
“The reality on the ground is that all these factors are being impacted by the force of climate change and people should do something about this. If human activity and selfishness persist, consequences such as poverty, migration and refugees will also continue, paving the way for reduced productivity, compromising global food security,” Centritto said.
Centritto said sustainable development goals state that by 2030, the world’s efforts in combating desertification should lead to restoring degraded land and soil, including land affected by drought and floods, in addition to striving hard to achieve a “land degradation-neutral world.” Land degradation neutrality is implemented on a voluntary basis with the support of UNCCD. He said about 122 countries have already committed to their respective LDN targets.
According to Centritto, LDN projects highlight a number of priorities with different target years to be considered in national plans and programs such as improvement and understanding ongoing land degradation processes and validation of land productivity and programs (2017), identification of targets and action plans in pilot areas with stakeholders (2018), implementation of measures in pilot areas (2020), improvement of awareness of land degradation causes and impacts, etc.
He said the hottest seasons on record will represent the future norm in many locations - extreme seasonal heat could become a long-term trend without sufficient investments in adaptation. The KU event was hosted by the Italian Embassy in Kuwait, attended by Italian Ambassador to Kuwait Carlo Baldocci.