The commitment of Como Acqua, Sole Manager of the Integrated Water Service, also translates into a geopolitics conference, with Minister Locatelli. The event at Villa Gallia, Tuesday, May 30 from 5:00 PM
Tuesday, May 30 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, at Villa Gallia, Como Acqua is organizing a conference with the emblematic title “Water Wars – Water as a source of life and cause of war.” In addition to Eng. Enrico Pezzoli, President and CEO of the Utility, the panel includes highly prestigious speakers: Alessandra Locatelli (Minister for Disabilities), Professor Maria Cristina Rulli (of the Polytechnic University of Milan), Mirko Mussetti (analyst for Limes), and Sorinel Ghetau (program director of Oxfam Italia).
With their valuable contributions, the issue of water scarcity will be framed, along with the difference between it and drought—understood as a purely meteorological and climatic phenomenon—by exploring in depth the connections these problems can have on the global scenario. Indeed, research and studies demonstrating that the issues of climate change, population growth, and water scarcity must be reinterpreted through a lens of close interconnection are not new.
“This meeting, conceived and organized by Como Acqua, aims to bring the debate on the water crisis to as broad and diverse an audience as possible., Enrico Pezzoli explains. “We intend to provide analytical and reflective tools that can encourage individuals to understand how the water emergency we ourselves have been experiencing locally in recent years has a much broader scope and therefore requires a concrete and effective collective contribution. As IWM operators, our commitment involves the protection and enhancement of water through maintenance work and investments in the network, as well as awareness-raising efforts directed at the consumer. For this reason, we also intend to push ahead on the communication front by organizing further conferences and events of this kind.”.
Not only that. Como Acqua's commitment also takes concrete form, thanks to the fundraiser organized to support “Give water, save a life,” the project through which Oxfam intervenes by bringing drinking water to areas affected by drought due to war (such as in Ukraine), natural disasters (such as the earthquake between Turkey and Syria), or the worsening climate crisis (the Horn of Africa). Even a small donation can make a difference, as seen on the initiative's official page: https://www.oxfamitalia.org/como-acqua.
“Not everyone knows this, but in war situations, aqueducts are precisely the first targets to be hit, because in this way an entire territory can be brought to its knees. The scarcity of water in various parts of the world only aggravates this problem: it is called «blue gold» precisely because the control of this resource guarantees wealth and power. Many wars are already triggered by water today, and in the future this will happen more and more often: at the conference we will explain this dynamic, with many concrete examples, starting from the very close link between the control of water basins and the fate of different countries on an agricultural, food, and economic level, explains Enrico Pezzoli.
During the event, which is open to the public, the complexity of a global scenario will be examined in which the water crisis, having become an ominous companion of our lives, causes conditions of social, economic, and cultural tension. There will be no shortage of historical references to the approximately 1,300 “water” wars that, from the Sumerian conflict between the city of Urlama and that of Umma, have reached the present day. The Ukrainian scenario becomes yet further proof of how water is a central issue. What in times of peace is the ultimate good—due to its use in agriculture, but also for logistics and thus the export of goods along river routes, and for the life of communities in general—becomes a combat front in war, a tool to bring the enemy to their knees by planning floods, destroying civilian infrastructure, and jeopardizing the safe operation of nuclear power plants.
Thus, the thesis put forward in 2019 in the journal “Nature”, according to which the climate is destined to become a major risk factor for the outbreak of wars, appears to be confirmed: the study even went so far as to calculate that, in the event of a 4-degree increase in the average temperature, the risk of new conflicts would grow by 26%. Whether or not there is a connection between climate change and various manifestations of violence, it is certain that climate change and drought jeopardize public water supplies, threaten biodiversity, damage infrastructure, undermine food security (meaning the certainty of having food), pose a danger to human health (with social repercussions), and reduce energy production. Examining these issues and developing response strategies is becoming a top priority on the global agenda, as was reiterated during the second edition of the Water Conference recently organized by the UN in 2023 in New York, which Pezzoli attended as a member of the board of APE – Aqua Publica Europea.
The “Water Wars” conference has free admission and will be followed by a refreshment: reservation is appreciated by writing to comunicazione@comoacqua.it