Water as weapon
š India flags shift from sharing to leverage.
FROM THE EDITORāS DESK
WorldWise readersā
The world as we know it simply canāt exist without water. Our health depends on it, most civilisations were built around sources of it, battles have been fought over securing access to it. As much as society changes through the years, that much remains the same.
Letās dive right in for the roundupāthereās a lot to catch up on for this issue, with Catholic marriage and Jane Fonda somewhere in the mix.
Anita
INSIGHT | views & analysis
Long-standing agreements are on the line.
On the 23rd of April, after tensions kicked off at the border between India and Pakistan, India announced it would pull out of the Indus Water Treatyāan agreement brokered by the World Bank in 1960, which governs the cross-border use of the Indus River and its tributaries.
"Now, India's water will flow for India's benefit, it will be conserved for India's benefit, and it will be used for India's progress." - Narendra Modi, Indiaās Prime Minister, in BBC News
The move sparked fears of major water disruptions that could cripple Pakistanās agriculture and economy.
Indiaās threat followed a terrorist attack in the northern town of Pahalgam, where 26 people were killed by militants. Retaliatory strikes on Pakistan brought the two countries to the brink of war before a ceasefire was brokered.
But concerns over suspension of the water treaty lingerānot least because they signal a shift towards the potential weaponisation of shared natural resources like water, and an erosion of established legal frameworks.
Lay of the land | The rivers and tributaries of the Indus basin that flow from India supply water to 80% of Pakistanās farms, which make up nearly 25% of its GDP. The downstream country also relies on the Indus river system to supply drinking water to tens of millions of people, and for most of its hydroelectric power generation.
How did Pakistan come to be so dependent on its neighbour? Back in 1947, when the British colonial government drew borders dividing the river between the two countries, most irrigation systems fell within Pakistanās territory even though the majority of headwaters are located in India.
Now, water stress brought on by climate change is part of the picture too. Pakistan is growing more vulnerable to water scarcity as it faces higher temperatures, droughts, meting glaciers and extreme weather events that disrupt water flow. A move by India to cut off the cross-border flow of water would make matters worse.
Keeping the treaty alive | According to the water-sharing pact, India has to let most of the rivers flow freely downstream to Pakistan. The Indus Water Treaty is considered one of the few agreements to stand the test of time through a tense history between the two countries. It was designed with built-in mechanisms to help resolve disputes. But Pakistanās leaders have warned that any attempt to stop the flow "will be considered as an act of war".
"The pact is like a Catholic marriage: once committed, you cannot wriggle out of it; there is no provision in the treaty for that." - Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Pakistan's defence minister, in Dialogue Earth
In Indiaās view, the move isnāt about weaponising water but about asserting a legitimate right to respond to aggression and maintain regional stability.
Suspension aftershocks | The abrupt suspension is unprecedented in South Asiaās water diplomacyāa scenario where water is no longer treated as a shared ecosystem good, but a tool for geopolitical advantage.
Some analysts see the development setting a dangerous precedent in the region, where Bangladesh and Nepal also rely on India to share water and data. The Ganges Water Treaty with Bangladesh, which is due to expire in 2026, could be a test case of how far the current threat reverberates.
And thereās wider hydro-politics to consider: Chinaās growing presence in regional water infrastructure comes without water-sharing agreements or a data-sharing track record.
In fact, China is planning to erect the worldās biggest hydroelectric project in a remote gorge in Tibet, raising fears it could be used for leverage in a conflict, either to cut off water flows or unleash floods downstream. The threat of such "water bombs" is leading India to counter with its own plans of a mega-dam across the border.
Reality check | According to analysts, India lacks the infrastructure to completely stop the river flow, which would involve withholding excess water. It certainly canāt do it overnight. But suspending the treaty would allow it to engineer disruptions. For example, India could then disregard restrictions on dam construction, and hold back floor alerts or data that communicates when water is released. New dams and canals could also slowly drain away Pakistanās water supply.
Some reports suggest India has already began a sediment-flushing operation at the Baglihar and Salal hydroelectric dams without prior notice, while restricting downstream flows from both dams.
The bigger picture | Concerns over the suspension move setting a dangerous precedent also extend to other regions where rivers flow across borders. And in the bigger picture, some see a risk of treaties increasingly being used as tools for strategic leverage rather than instruments of cooperation. This is already happening in South Asia, according to some sources.
If India, long seen as a status-quo power in transboundary water governance, begins treating water as a strategic weapon, it opens the door for other states to follow suit. - Ashok Swain, Unesco chair of international water cooperation and professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University in Sweden, in Eco-Business News
Sources: [GPJ] [DW] [BBC] [Eurasia Review] [Chatham House] [TIME] [Eco-Business News] [Eco-Business opinion] [Phys.org] [Yale E360]
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IN RELATED NEWS
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The weaponisation of water: Water and water infrastructure are being increasingly targeted with impunity in conflicts from Gaza to Ukraine. The effects on health are complex, compounding, and longlasting. Rebecca Sers reports - The Lancet
GLOBAL BRIEFING | around the world
In the media spotlight
š The development aid sector continues to grapple with the US administrationās shake-up of the past weeks. Reports by The Washington Post and Devex lay out the toll of the first 100 days after the budget cuts. The future of US funding became clearer with the announcement of the new administrationās proposed budget for fiscal year 2026, according to Devex. ProPublica, DW and others also report on the global impact of sweeping domestic cuts to scientific research.
Focus on AfricaāThe Trump administration is planning to cut $555 million from the African Development Bankās main fund, Yinka Adegoke reports for Semafor. To mixed reactions, the US is said to be shifting towards a ātrade not aidā strategy for the continent, one focused on economic reforms and infrastructure projects aimed at creating a market for American companies, Ayenat Mersie reports for Devex. Writing in Africa is a Country, Marjorie Namara Rugunda reflects on what the aid cuts reveal about the continentās colonial dependencies and calls for a refusal of similar systems of control.
Post-aid futuresāAn analysis by McKinsey & Company says this is a āgenerational shiftā for the aid sector and calls for better prioritisation, improvements in productivity and reassessing how the current system is designed. Sam Huckstep and Helen Dempster of the Center for Global Development argue that remittancesāmoney that migrants send back to their home countriesāare now becoming more important for aid, and suggest ways to maximise their impact. For The New Humanitarian, Themrise Khan outlines six actions developing countries can take to cut their dependence on foreign aid.
Funding falloutāIn the shorter term, the Economist says the UN could run out of cash within months, with reports from the FT, Devex and others suggesting itās considering extensive reforms including restructuring, relocations and a scale-back of posts and operations. Global health is expected to take a big hit. As the US withdraws from the WHO, China is set to become the agencyās top donor The Washington post reports. At the World health Assembly that just concluded, member states agreed to increase funding contributions by 20%ābut that wonāt close the funding gap, according to Devex. Meanwhile, DW and the Economist flag that progress in living standards and human development stalled almost everywhere in 2024, according to the UNās annual Human Development Index report.
š¦ The global pandemic treaty thatās been in the works for the past three years has been signed off at the annual WHO meeting in Geneva. Following the coverage last month of member statesā agreement of the text, several media including Euronews, Reuters and the Telegraph reported the achievement of finally having a legally binding accord that requires countries to take steps to prevent, prepare for and respond to future pandemics while addressing key concerns like equitable distribution of medical supplies and data.
But concerns are emerging too. Thereās still no agreement on details of one of the most controversial aspects of the treaty: the pathogen access and benefit-sharing (PABS) system that lays out how sharing of pathogen samples is balanced with sharing of the benefits that result from that information, like vaccines. Mark Eccleston-Turner and colleagues lay out the key issues on the table for Think Global Health. Working through them could take a year, and 60 countries still need to ratify the agreement internally before it goes into effect, Jonathan Lambert reports for NPR.
Ebere Okereke of the Chatham House writes for Think Global Health about further concernsāsuch as a lack of financial guarantees, enforcement mechanisms and firm commitments on technology transfer. The most gloomy assessment Iāve seen so far comes from Clare Wenham, also from the Chatham House, who argues that the agreement fails to correct the key inequalities and inefficiencies that defined the global response to COVID-19, and may end up weakening multilateralism.
š§š· Brazil has published a letter with its vision of COP30, which urges countries to move from pledges to implementation. It does this by putting forward the concept of Global MutirĆ£o, a term that conveys the idea of coming together to work on a shared task with mutual support. But the countryās own actions tell a different story. IBAMA, the environmental agency, has approved a near-final licensing requirement that paves the way for new oil exploration in the Amazon, SumaÅ«ma reports. And lawmakers have approved a measure to reform the process of issuing permits process, which critics say adds up to easing environmental protections, Daniel Carvalho reports for Bloomberg. Meanwhile, criticism persists of the decision to go ahead with construction of a major highway in the state of ParĆ”, due to host the UN summit, which is expected to cut across what remains of the rainforest in the area, Fabiano Maisonnave reports for AP.
News highlights
š š On global development
US tariffs on coffee-producing countries are expected to make coffee more expensive, with prices already on the rise as climate change harms production, according to reports by the AP and Bloomberg. Analysts also see a risk of deforestation rising in Southeast Asia and Latin America, with tariffs potentially driving up exports to China and a shift in demand from palm oil to the more land-intensive soybean oil, report Business Green and Dialogue Earth.
The DRC and Rwanda are close to signing a deal to end three decades of conflict that was brokered by the US, in exchange for developing mineral supply chains with US investors, Andrew Mills reports in an exclusive for Reuters. The DRC produces 70% of the worldās cobalt, a vital āgreen energyā mineral, most of which currently goes to China.
Colombia has signed up to China's Belt and Road (BRI) Initiative, joining two-thirds of Latin American countries who have already done so, report DW and news agencies. Meanwhile, Reuters and Al Jazeera report on a think-tank estimate suggesting that 75 low-income countries collectively owe a record $22 billion in debt repayments to China, primarily from BRI loans.
At the end of 2024, the number of internally displaced people exceeded 80 million for the first time, a trend driven by conflict and violence as well as increasing weather-related disasters, Lottie Limb reports for Euronews.
Two violent incidents this month highlight the risks of Latin Americaās criminal groups fighting over an increasingly profitable illicit gold industry, James Bosworth writes for World Politics Review.
š š”ļø On climate change & energy
Following up on the nod to energy-hungry data centres in the last Briefing, Bloomberg has a positive angle on the story: how the heat from data centres can be put to good use, as in Finland, where last year a data centre provided enough heat for 2,500 homes, covering two-thirds of local demand.
Microsoft is set to finance the extraction of 18 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in one of the largest carbon removal credit deals, Alastair Marsh reports for Bloomberg.
For the first time on record, Chinaās growing clean power generation has been the main driving force behind a fall in its carbon dioxide emissions, according to an analysis by Carbon Brief.
Across the Mekong Delta, costly engineering projects that promise nature-based solutions are failing to defend farmland against drought and saltwater intrusion brought by climate change, Nhung Nguyen reports for Dialogue Earth.
The world is likely to breach 1.5Ā°C above pre-industrial levels in the next five years, a sign that global temperature rise is accelerating, the UN reports. Women and children are amongst the more vulnerable groups: warmer days are putting pregnant women at a higher risk for health complications, Simmone Shah reports for TIME, and 83% of 5-year-olds will face āunprecedentedā extreme heat in their lifetime, according to Euronews.
š± š§ On environmental protection
The amount of forest lost in 2024 reached a record-high 26,000 square miles, with a shift in the driving forces behind the destruction: fire was the biggest culprit, overtaking agriculture for the first time in at least two decades, according to reports in The New York Times and World Resources Institute.
Back to data centres and AI: theyāre disproportionately built in highly water-stressed areas around the worldāwhile consuming vast amounts of water which is used to cool servers and the power plants that feed them, Michelle Ma reports for Bloomberg.
Mexicoās Indigenous communities are fighting to protect forests against illegal deforestation and drug cartels trading in booming avocado production, which is driven by US demand, AgustĆn del Castillo reports for Yale E360.
A petition to grant Ecuadorās Los Cedros forest a legal copyright as a songwriter is expected to reach the courts, and if successful could reshape how nature is treated in law and the creative arts, Samual Firman writes for Amos.
Jane Fonda has partnered with Amazon Frontlines, a non-profit working with Indigenous peoples to urge Ecuadorās Constitutional Court to create a national framework that ensures their land rights, Simmone Shah reports for TIME.
By adding Cuba to its State Sponsors of Terrorism list, which paves the way for harsh sanctions, the new Trump administration has restricted the resources the island needs for environmental protection, Vinicius Pereira reports for The Revelator.
Diego MenjĆbar ReynĆ©s reports for The Guardian on how an idealistic tree-planting project has turned into a thorny nightmare in Kenyaāfor another angle, see my story from the field published last year š
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PLUS | in other editions
UPDATE | from the network
The Guardian journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were killed in 2022 while investigating the impact of deforestation. Now, a book Phillips was writing at the time of his death has been completed by a group of colleaguesāread an extract here and buy the book here. A six-part investigative podcast by The Guardian, uncovering what happened to Phillips and Pereira, is due to launch on 5 June.
Michel Forst, the UNās Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders under the Aarhus Convention, has issued a call for the company TotalEnergies to protect environmental defenders in Uganda in light of reports of a series of human rights violations against those opposing crude oil pipeline projectsādetails here.
The BLOOM investigative report, by the Dutch journalist consortium SPIT, sheds light on the power of the Dutch fishing ācartelā of five major Dutch industrial groups, which dominate destructive industrial fishing across five continentsāpress details here.
The Pulitzer Center is keen on more reporting on the data centre industry and is working with Lighthouse Reports and Tech Policy Press to understand what journalists need to report on the topicājournalists can fill out a survey here.
The Rockefeller Foundationās Bellagio Center has opened applications for its 2026 Convening Program: 1-week-long convenings designed to develop and implement breakthrough solutions to the worldās greatest challengesādetails here.
Brazilian soil microbiologist Mariangela Hungria has won the 2025 World Food Prize for her work developing biological seed and soil treatments that help crops access nutrients such as nitrogen more sustainablyāTania Karas reports for Devex.
PS.
Brazilian singer and rapper Brisa Flow mixes hip-hop with ancestral singing, jazz, electronic and neo-soul. Many of her songs are influenced by her own background and the struggle of Indigenous people in Brazil. She made history in 2023 as the first Indigenous artist featured on the lineup of Lollapalooza Brazil. [Source: The World]
Thank you.
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I knew Catholic marriage and Jane Fonda had to be two unrelated tangents!
I've long been frightened of the prospect of a war between India and Pakistan that could be the one to eventually do us all in. But until now I wasn't aware that it could be over water.