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STORY: UN / WORLD WATER DEVELOPMENT REPORT
TRT: 1:10
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGAUGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 21 MARCH 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1.Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
21 MARCH 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2.Wide shot, press briefing room
3.SOUNDBITE (English) Bhanu Neupane, Process Coordinator for the UNESCO World Water Development Report:
“The facts are clear. We are not just approaching a global water crisis. We are already living it.”
4. Wide shot, press briefing room
5.SOUNDBITE (English) Bhanu Neupane, Process Coordinator for the UNESCO World Water Development Report:
“Solutions do exist. We must invest in better water monitoring and management. We must strengthen international cooperation, primarily to bring a new era of multilateral and multi-stakeholder collaboration. We must act now, because climate change is accelerating, water crisis and delays will cost lives.”
6. Wide shot, press briefing room
7.SOUNDBITE (English) Bhanu Neupane, Process Coordinator for the UNESCO World Water Development Report:
“Just to tell you that mountains are not just landscape. They are the lifeline of our planet. The water sustains billions of people. And just to give you a two parting messages - the water security is not a future problem but it exists now; and mountains are dramatically changing. The question is whether or not we will change with the mountains.”
8. Wide shot, press briefing room
The 2025 edition of the United Nations World Water Development Report highlighted the importance of mountain waters, including alpine glaciers, which are vital for meeting basic human needs such as water supply and sanitation.
They are also essential to ensuring food and energy security to billions of people living in and around mountain regions and areas downstream. They also support economic growth through various water-reliant industries.
As the ‘water towers’ of the world, mountains are an essential source of fresh water. They store water in the form of ice and snow during cold seasons, releasing it during warmer seasons as a major source of fresh water for users downstream. Mountains play a unique and critical role in the global water cycle, and they affect atmospheric circulation, which drives weather and precipitation patterns.
Speaking to reporters at the launch of the report today (21 Mar), Bhanu Neupane, Process Coordinator for the UNESCO World Water Development Report said, “The facts are clear. We are not just approaching a global water crisis. We are already living it.”
“Solutions do exist,” the UNESCO official said, reiterating that “we must invest in better water monitoring and management. We must strengthen international cooperation, primarily to bring a new era of multilateral and multi-stakeholder collaboration. We must act now, because climate change is accelerating, water crisis and delays will cost lives.”
Neupane also said, “mountains are not just landscape. They are the lifeline of our planet. The water sustains billions of people.”
He concluded, “the water security is not a future problem but it exists now; and mountains are dramatically changing. The question is whether or not we will change with the mountains.”
