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This Monday began to trade water on the commodity futures market product of its growing scarcity in the world.
The Nasdaq Veles California Water Index – represented under the stock code NQH2O – corresponds to an indicator of water prices in California. This Monday it began trading at around US $ 486.53 per acre-foot, a US unit of measurement that in the international system would correspond to 1,233 cubic meters, according to Forbes Mexico.
It should be noted that the price of water has doubled in the last year in California. According to experts, this new incursion of water into the stock market would allow better management of the future risk of this.
However, from Greenpeace they point out that Chile could be affected by the above given the current conflict over this common good, aggravated by the current climate crisis.
According to the organization, the call for attention is that this sets an international precedent, in countries where water is not yet guaranteed for human consumption and ecosystems and there are still people who, in the context of a pandemic, do not have this resource or to properly face the pandemic. The example of Chile just demonstrates the seriousness of moving in this direction, where water is already a commodity in the hands of a few.
Matías Asun, director of Greenpeace, pointed out that “what is happening today on Wall Street has its worst face in Chile. Considering that this unequal allocation established in the 1980 Constitution where there are people who do not have access to this vital element, positions us as the banner of social and environmental inequality and injustice that exists in the country ”.
Along these lines, he added that “the same liter that is used in industry, agriculture or mining, used to reach native forests, wetlands, and ecosystems that maintain our health and quality of life. When there is competition for a common good such as water, further aggravated by the climate crisis, it will obviously become more expensive to care for these ecosystems and even the supply that, as a human right, is the responsibility of most states ”.
“In Chile the clearest example of this was seen this year in May in the middle of the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis when the government deliberately annulled a sanitary resolution that increased the scarce amount of water that was delivered to different locations in the Valparaíso region, arguing cost reasons, ”he said.
Regarding the same, he pointed out: “Although there is no guarantee that this measure will have a positive environmental and social impact, the truth is that it would not be applicable to countries like ours, where the water problem has no precedent or parallel; Chile has its waters privatized de facto and is an international example of how this translates into injustice and social and environmental problems: we do not take care of our sources, such as glaciers; there are owners of complete rivers; water has become expensive for the state to supply and priceless
for a vulnerable sector, as we face a climate crisis that has significantly reduced rainfall ”.
“Chile is, by far, the epicenter of the commercial vision of water. While in the rest of the world water rights are constituted by concessions or licenses, in Chile it is in the hands of a few who have seized it in perpetuity, threatening everything else, a situation that is enshrined in our laws and in our current constitution. In other words, we have taken the problem of understanding water as a productive resource in private hands to the absolute extreme, ”Asun explained.
According to the organization, there must be regulatory systems for productive activities, especially considering factors such as the current climate crisis where there will be less and less water available., the risk of assigning value to water over said activities, without a manifest commitment of the States to safeguard the protection of the environment and human consumption for a dignified life, implies a major danger.
The foregoing, as indicated, is manifested in the fact that thousands of people in Chile do not receive enough water, a situation that threatens compliance with international commitments on human rights, a fact that has been denounced by international rapporteurs from the United Nations.
These declarations occur days after the release of the report from the Space Production Center that indicates that of the 29,001 holders who own consumptive water rights, 1% would concentrate almost 80% of the total volume available in the systemIn other words, the unequal concentration of permanent ownership of water is almost absolute in the country.
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