It was forecasted that half of the world population would face water shortage by 2025.
On August 18th, Ministry of Strategy and Finance declared 2011 UN Future Report which contains assessments to fifteen world challenges such as climate change observation, sustainable development, and clean water source acquirement based on a research called ‘Millennium Project,’ by an international future study think tank. On the report, a new concept called “peak water” was introduced, which is similar to peak oil indicating the summit of oil production. Awareness of crisis to water source exhaustion and descent of water table in world-wide progress created such neologism.
The report announced that 884 million people today do not have an access to clean water and 2.6 billion people are not ensured with safe public sanitary. 80% of the diseases in developing countries are related to water and UN and international organizations view that it is caused by imperfect processing of human stools. The report also expected that in 2025 half of the world population will suffer from water exhaustion, in which less than 1000m2 of water is annually spent per person due to climate change and increased water demand.
In addition, the report forecasted that more than half of the world energy supply will come from fossil fuel even after 40 years from now. It analyzed that world energy demand is expected to increase 40% to 50% by 2035 and investments in alternative energy to fossil fuel are rapidly growing. “With an absence of extraordinary change in technology and customary attitudes, however, more than half of the world energy supply will rely on fossil fuel even in 2050s,” pronounced the press.
