10. What can be done to combat water scarcity and drought?

Water scarcity occurs when the demand exceeds the supply of fresh water in a given area. Global warming and climate change are two of the factors that most incidence and duration of droughts.

This situation appears as a consequence of a high aggregate demand by the sectors that consume water with respect to the available supply.

There is a series of simple and daily actions to combat water scarcity and drought, which are in the hands of children, youth and adults. These, almost in their entirety, refer to changing some habits such as: saving electricity, planting trees, caring for plants, recycling and reusing what is possible to generate less garbage. Use alternative means to the car, such as the bus, the subway, the bicycle, etc.

Other actions that are much more global and effective to combat lack of water and drought are in the hands of governments, companies and world organizations such as the UN, FAO or UNESCO.

These actions are based on the Paris Agreement, whose main goal is to limit the increase in temperature to 1.5°C by the end of the century. To do this, the emission of fossil fuels must be eliminated by 2050, an objective that seems to be achieved. Another action is to fight against the illegal felling of trees in forests and rainforests, something that for now is completely out of control. Clean the oceans of the waste that humans have dumped into their waters.

The great tropical forests and the oceans of the world are the great carbon sinks of the planet, those responsible for extracting CO2 from the atmosphere, which is why they are called the lungs of the world.

If all these actions are fulfilled, both the simple ones and the global ones, we will have controlled droughts and water shortages.