Sustainable sanitation and gaps in global climate policy and financing

Although sanitation systems are fundamental for human health and sustainable development, limited focus has been placed on their contributions to climate mitigation and adaptation. Climate change threatens existing systems, as well as efforts to increase services for 2.3 billion people who lack even...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:npj clean water 2020, Vol.3 (1), Article 24
Main Authors: Dickin, Sarah, Bayoumi, Moustafa, Giné, Ricard, Andersson, Kim, Jiménez, Alejandro
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
4014/4004
4014/4012
706/2805
706/689/694/2739/2819
706/689/694/682
Adaptation
Aquatic Pollution
Climate change
Climate change mitigation
Climate policy
Earth and Environmental Science
Environment
Environmental policy
Financing
Global climate
Nanotechnology
Organic matter
Perspective
Sanitation
Sanitation systems
Sustainable development
Waste Water Technology
Wastewater
Water Industry/Water Technologies
Water Management
Water Pollution Control
Water Quality/Water Pollution
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Summary:Although sanitation systems are fundamental for human health and sustainable development, limited focus has been placed on their contributions to climate mitigation and adaptation. Climate change threatens existing systems, as well as efforts to increase services for 2.3 billion people who lack even a basic sanitation service. At the same time, the sanitation and wastewater sector directly produces emissions associated with breakdown of organic matter, and treatment processes require large energy inputs. In light of these challenges, we describe gaps in how sanitation is being addressed in mitigation and adaptation, discuss how this results in little inclusion of sanitation in climate policy and financing at the global level, and implications of these gaps for different sanitation systems and geographic regions. Finally, we describe the need for planning frameworks to facilitate integration of climate change into sanitation policy and programming. This will be critical to increasing understanding of sanitation and climate change linkages among stakeholders, and more effectively including sanitation in climate action.
ISSN:2059-7037
2059-7037
DOI:10.1038/s41545-020-0072-8