Research Report
Water Report
No River, No Power – Can Asia’s Rivers Power Growth in a Changing Climate?
CWR releases new report, “No River, No Power – Can Asia’s rivers power growth in a changing climate?”, which analyses a third of global power generation capacity to find that escalating climate risks and rivers running dry can strand sizeable portions of national power generation assets.
The report finds sizeable trifecta exposure to water risks across 10 key rivers from the Yangtze, Yellow, Indus, Ganges, to the Mekong (10 HKH Rivers):
- Almost half of this (865GW) are in the 10 HKH River Basins – this is more than the total GW of the G7 ex-US;
- Over 94% of the 865GW needs water to generate electricity; and
- Almost 330GW or 38% of power GW clustered in 10 basins are located in areas that are arid or already face ‘High’ to ‘Extremely High’ water stress.
Analyses in the report showed clear national energy security implications for 16 countries from China, India, Pakistan, Laos, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Nepal to Bhutan – there is high energy dependence on single to multiple rivers.
Findings are shocking but timely. Already, last year, Yangtze droughts disrupted the power supply and wreaked havoc across global supply chains while Indus floods displaced over 30 million people and devastated Pakistan’s economy.
Learn more about the report and China Water Risk here.
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