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How Water Will Determine the Global Economy's Winners and Losers · Trumponomics

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Day zero. It's a phrase that is as ominous as
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: it sounds. Cape Town in South Africa is running out
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: of water and day zero is the hypothetical moment when
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the city will turn off the taps and ration water
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: to residents. This would be devastating to the economy in
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: one of the continent's wealthiest cities. So how did Cape
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Town get to this point? And where else in the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: world has water become a risk for economic disaster or
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the key to an economy's success. Welcome to Benchmark. I'm
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Scott Landman, an economics editor with Bloomberg News in Washington.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Moss, economics writer and editor at Bloomberg View
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: in New York. So, Dan, you grew up in Australia,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: a place that's not really known for its rainfall or
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: abundant water. How does the scarcity of water affect people's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: vives on under? Not much is the answer, and the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: reason is why the continent is vast and a large
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: portion of it is dry. Most of the people in
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Australia live on the east coast and a portion of
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the southeastern corner that's where most of the rainfall is concentrated.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Wasn't really a thing when we were growing up. Well.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: With climate change, you just never know, maybe it will
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: become a thing at some point in the future. And
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: you know, thinking about this topic are day to day
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: coverage of the economy. We we write a lot about GDP, inflation,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: fiscal policy and so on, and lately trade policy of course.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: But you know, one thing we don't focus on much
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: is how resources besides oil are influencing economies around the world,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: and yet civilization would just not be able to function
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: without plentiful available water. We really take it for granted
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: that water will be the air, but maybe it won't.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: But let's bring in our first guest. Corpert Brand is
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: an editor in our bureau in Cape Town, where he's
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: lived for the past eight years, and he's been covering
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the water crisis there this year. Robert, thanks for joining
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: us on Benchmark. Good evening, Scott, it's nice talking to you, Robert.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Why have the city's water supplies gotten so low? Okay,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: so you know, capeed On, even at the best of times,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: is not particularly well endowed with water. It's got a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Mediterranean climate, which means long and dry and hot summers
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: and relatively short wet winters. The city doesn't have any
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: perennial major rivers, so all its water or portable water
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: comes from man made reservoirs that are fed mainly by
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: rainwater runoff from the mountain ranges surrounding the city. And
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: that kind of sort of has worked for us for
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: a couple of centuries, I guess um. But two things
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: has happened recent more recently. The one is that there's
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: been a huge influx of people into Cape Town. So
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the population of the city has doubled in the last
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: twenty years to about three and a half million. And
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: then we also in the midst of the worst drought
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: in living memory. So we've had three years of below
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: average rainfall, which is a highly kind of unusual occurrence,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: and court authorities and everybody unawares. And so, to make
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a long story short, just too many people, not enough
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: water storage and not enough rain and maybe a little
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: bit of bad planning throwning. And now there have been
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: some water restrictions enacted, Right, how have they changed life
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: in Cape Town? So eighteen months ago, Cape Town as
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: a city was using about one point two billion liters
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: of water a day, and that's been brought down to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: just over five million liters, So it's a sixty percent
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: reduction in water consumption in just every year, and mainly,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: you know, through kind of money inconveniences that have almost
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: become part of daily life. Here in my family, for example,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: we don't bath. In fact, the last time I had
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: a bath, ironically, was in the middle of a desert
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: in Dubai a couple of months ago. Don't get me wrong.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: We do wash, We shower, but we take very short
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: showers seconds and we do it standing in the bucket
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: so that we catch all the run off water and
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: we can use that. Then the flush the loom, and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: we don't flush the loo and unless it's absolutely necessary.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: So it's all these kind of a little small things.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: It's it's really more about thinking about your water usage.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: And obviously stuff like you know, washing the car or
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: filling the swimming pool or watering the lawn, those kind
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: of things are long gone. Yeah, So so you know,
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  Speaker 1: there hasn't really been a major disruption yet the tap
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  Speaker 1: seven run dry, but it's almost as if a new normal,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a sitting where we think a lot more about how
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: we use water and try to limit our water usage
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  Speaker 1: as much as possible. Robert explain the huge influx of
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: people to Cape Town that you mentioned at the start,
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  Speaker 1: what's driving that and how much of the strain on
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: the water supply system does that account for. You could
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: say there's mostly economic migrants and and but by different
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: kinds of economic migrants. So there's been a huge influx
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: of of poor people that live in informal settlements and
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: shanty towns around the kind of center of the city.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: And at the other end of the socio economic scale,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: there's also been quite a large influx of kind of
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: upper middle class people that have moved to Cape Town
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to seek a better standard of living. A lot of foreigners,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of UK residents, Germans and son that that
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: come here to kind of seek the summer sun. So
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: it's kind of a range of socio economic you know,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: ethnographic groups have moved in basically in search of a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: bit in life. If you look at the water consumption
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  Speaker 1: in Cape Town, the I think the main consumption that
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: the most water is used by the upper middle class
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: people the suburbs of Cape Town, and obviously those are
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the people that have got launch the water and some
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: equals the full and those kind of things. The poorer
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  Speaker 1: classes the shanty towns and informal settlements, and people do
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  Speaker 1: not have those kind of amenities, and so they're kind
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: of more used to almost using a lot less water.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: But it's the economic migrancy and and and and across
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: the whole socio economic spectrum. Robert, there are some scarre
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: headlines that we saw even all the way here in
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the United States a couple of months ago, that day
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  Speaker 1: zero was just a couple of months away. I think
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: it was even supposed to have happened already at one point,
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  Speaker 1: but now it's been pushed out to nineteen. Is there
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: still the same sense of danger that the still might happen,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: or are people starting to go back to old habits?
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: You got a good word. At one point back in January,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I think we were about six weeks away from day zero.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: But d zero was also a moving target, so it
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: was always based on assumptions about water consumption and and
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: water supply, and as people started cutting their consumption and
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: getting closer to the target set by the city, they've
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: got moved out further and further until now it's been
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: postponed indefinitely. But but that's on the assumption that we
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: will have normal winter rainfall starting about now. So if
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: we get to the end of April and the end
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: of May and haven't had a normal rainfall, then I
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: think in day zero will be back on the calendar.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: So we're keeping uping his cross. There is some good
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: rainfall forecast for tomorrow and the rest of this week
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: in Captain, and we're all waiting and hope Day zero
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: has a very apocalyp ring to it. What actually happens
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: day zero? It sounds really bad, but what actually happens?
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  Speaker 1: And do you think that's a good name for it
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: or not? It is apocalyptic in a way because what
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: would happen is the taps would literally run dry, so
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  Speaker 1: this city would basically turned off the water supply into
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: homes and everybody rich and poor would have to go
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and queue at about two hundred points around the city
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  Speaker 1: for the water would be dispensed by the authorities and
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  Speaker 1: he would be entitled to I think twenty five liters
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  Speaker 1: per person per day. And you can think a city
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  Speaker 1: of three and a half million people and about two
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  Speaker 1: hundred water collection points. You can think of the kind
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  Speaker 1: of scenes that would happen there, and and you know,
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  Speaker 1: with the the army and police standing by to to
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: keep order and and and prevent crime and so on.
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  Speaker 1: So it is kind of an apocalyptic vision and and
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  Speaker 1: that that is what what would happen if once the
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  Speaker 1: damn levels or the levels of the reservoirs around Cape
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  Speaker 1: un dropped below a certain level about it in percent
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: of capacity, then that is what's going to happen. What
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: will people do for morning coffee? Exactly? I think morning
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: coffee would be kind a thing of the past. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's a serious question, basic assumption and about civilization will
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: start to erode starting with the coffee right now? Well,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: would it threaten, for example, the government's grip on power? Not? Not?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Not not on a national level because Cape Town and
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the Western Cape Province of which Cape Town is the capital,
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  Speaker 1: is actually governed by the opposition main opposition party, the
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Democratic Allne so so the national government. From that point
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  Speaker 1: of view, I don't think it would have an immediate
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: be an immediate threat to the national government. But obviously
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the government's responds to this kind of crisis would would
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  Speaker 1: probably be a factory in the next election that we
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: have next year. And so so it is also a
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  Speaker 1: big political issue, especially with the opposition running the province
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and and and also facing accusations of not responding to
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: this crisis appropriately or maybe being a bit slow responding
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  Speaker 1: to the crisis. But I think it's more, you know,
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  Speaker 1: rather than a political issue. It is more it would
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  Speaker 1: be a of them off trying to to maintain law
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  Speaker 1: and order in a situation with you know, of million
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  Speaker 1: people are dependent on two hundred you know, water collection
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: points form not only the morning coffee, but the water
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  Speaker 1: that we need for daily laugh. Well, it's definitely a
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: story that we're going to keep an eye on, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure it'll make headlines around the world again if
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: we get anywhere closer to the day zero. Again, Robert Brand,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time on Benchmark. Thank you.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: All right, let's go to our next guest, who is
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: an expert on issues related to economic performance and climate change.
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  Speaker 1: Helen Mountford is the Global director of Economics at the
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: World Resources Institute in Washington. She was formerly the Deputy
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: director of Environment at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Helen,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: thanks for coming on Benchmark. Great to speak with you. Scott.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Helen. We were just talking with our Bloomberg
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: colleague Robert Brand about the situation in Cape Town. What
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: do you view as the mistakes Cape Town made in
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: managing its water supply. Cape Town has been facing an
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary challenge with three years of intense drought, but there's
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  Speaker 1: still a lot that we can learn from what they've
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: been doing there, and that's applicable to other cities and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: countries around the world in terms of how to better
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: manage water resources in increasing situations of drought or scarcity.
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  Speaker 1: One important lesson I think is just better understanding what
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the water risks are there. Cape Town is a city
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  Speaker 1: which has had a rapidly growing urban population. It's doubled
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  Speaker 1: in the last eighteen years, and there's a lot of
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: demands from agriculture and from industry. So in order to
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: understand what sort of demands there are now, what demands
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: are coming in the future, but also how these will
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: be affected, for example, by climate change. We know with
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: increasing climate change we're seeing much more variable rainfall, more
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: droughts and floods, and those droughts and floods are often
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: more severe, So understanding those risk is important and and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: one of the things that we actually have now at
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: our at our disposal is a fantastic global water risk
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: mapping tool called aqueduct, which helps companies, investors, cities, and
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: countries to understand those risks. Full disclosure. I want to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: mention that for any Bloomberg terminal users listening to this podcast,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: we have a really nifty function that lets you see
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the water stress levels in areas around the world. You
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: just type maps and you click on environmental risk and
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: you'll see a map of water risk with information from
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Helen's group, the World Resources Institute. So check it out.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: If anybody has any questions, just shoot me a message
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg. That's that's exactly right. Um, that's a
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: really useful tool. The other two areas of lessons that
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I think we should all learn from Cape Town's experiences
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: is that we do need to actively manage the water budgets.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Once you understand the water risks and the availability, the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: allocations between agriculture, between urban and users, between energy and industry,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it's really important to manage those different allocations and to
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: ensure that all are using water as efficiently as possible.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: And one of the things we've seen in a number
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: of countries is that pricing water well can actually help
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: to manage demand, can reduce inefficient water use. Um get
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: people to invest in more efficient appliances, for example, reduce
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: their UM water use where they don't need it. And
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: it's also an important source of revenues which governments. Many
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: governments need to invest in water supply and sanitation infrastructure
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: in the first place. So UM water pricing is can
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: help us with managing water demand. Helen, you talk about
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: water as though it's the new oil. Is it in
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: a sense like oil hot commodity that was often taken
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: for granted, yet its scarcity can cause significant reverberations throughout
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the economic, social, and political life of a country thanks
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: to I mean, some people do call it the new oil,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: others called the new gold. I do think water as
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: a resource is extremely precious and it's one that not
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: just human life, but all our activities here, whether it's agriculture, industry, etcetera,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: depends on water. It's absolutely fundamental to our well being.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: And what we're seeing is where there are areas of
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: extreme water scarcity or where we're starting to have severe
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: water pollution, that's really a massive impact on human health
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and well being. So I don't think it's something that
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: we have properly valued in the past in many cases. UM.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: In most countries around the world, for example, agriculture, which
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: is responsible for about seventy of water use, doesn't actually
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: pay for that water use at all in many cases,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: so we're not putting a value on that. And that
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: also means we're not sending a signal to those who
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: use water that this is important and valuable they should
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: use it as efficiently as possible. That is starting to
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: change as people realize the risks of over overdrawing on water, um,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: polluting it and not having sufficient around. Let's turn to China.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I lived in Beijing for a few years. Has a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: very dry climate. You get dust storms, uh during the year,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and um, you know, it's just generally very dry place.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: And now China has actually built a pipeline to bring
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: water from the wetter south of the country to the
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: drier north, particularly to Beijing. Is this good policy? Well,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: China is facing some acute water scarcity problems in the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: northern provinces UM, so they do need to actively manage those,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: and they've taken a number of steps already, including you know,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: significantly enhancing water use efficiency, putting some caps on water demand,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: including establishing a pilot UM trading system of water rights
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: in Nisha Province and doing what they can to reduce
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: water pollution so there's more clean water available for different uses.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: But beyond that, they need to then put in place
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: some some major options in terms of infrastructure development. That
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: can be desalonization and that can be pipelines, and the
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: South and North Water Diversion Project is one such. It's
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: already transferred something like eleven billion cubic meters of water,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: supplying factories and businesses and and an estimated fifty three
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: million residents, so that's quite significant. But one of the
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: challenges they face is that demand continues to increase. So Beijing,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: for example, um which gets about seventy of its water
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: through this this project is expected to add another two
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: million people before the government caps the city's population, so
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: there's going to be even more people needing water, so
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: that is a real challenge. Once the project is at
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: absolute maximum capacity, it's still not necessarily going to be
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: able to keep up with growing demands. So more emphasis,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: even more emphasis on efficiency measures and working with consumers
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and industry and energy to use water as efficiently as possible,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: to treat it as a precious resource is going to
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: be essential there in China. Israel is often seen as
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: a nation that's effectively managed its water supply despite not
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: having much of it. Helen, what's its secret. Israel does
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: face real challenges. It gets only forty to fifty days
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: of rain or so in coastal regions per year and
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: four to five and air, and so it's very, very dry,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: and it has been one of the big success stories
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: in terms of managing that. Part of that is just
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: investing heavily in de salonization. They've built five de salonization
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: plants since two thousand and five. They are also some
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: of the most energy efficient ones in the world, so
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: they're using as little energy as possible to do that desalonization.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Beyond that, they've also invested a lot on the recovery
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: and treatment of wastewater and using that particularly for agricultural
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: irrigation or for industry purposes. So they've been taking wastewater,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: treating it and then reusing it. They've also had significant
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: reforms in terms of water sector governance and the policies
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: that actually manage water allocations across the country, but also
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: how they collect water charges. And one of the things
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: they've done is moved towards water tariffs that account for
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the full cost of producing water and distributing it. There
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: that's not something that most other countries have done, but
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: they're charging the full costs, which provides real incentives to
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: households and to industry and agricultural users to use the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: water as efficiently as possible, and also helps to generate
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: revenue which is reel fully reinvests in the water infrastructure
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: and provision so they're able to keep that water infrastructure
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: as efficient as possible without the leakages that we see
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: in many other countries from old and degrading pipes. So
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: political and security issues in the Middle East are often
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: framed in terms of oil or religion. Should we add
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: water to that. Absolutely, we're seeing increasingly that water is
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: playing a part in some of the major crises that
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: were that we're seeing around the world, including in the
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Middle East and in Africa. UM even with the recent
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: crisis in Syria, we have seen that that has been
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: in part driven by extreme droughts in the country. That
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: is something which is an increasing threat um in many
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: countries and many regions around the world. Why don't we
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: hear much about that aspect of it. I think it's
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: perhaps not as exciting and sexy to people as other
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: reasons behind these these crises. But also often water is
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: something which starts off the crisis, but by the time
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: it actually reaches the attention of the media, it's it's
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: snowballed into other child lunges. So, for example, in Syria,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: there is an extreme drought UM which started leading to
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: farmers having to leave agricultural lines and move into the city.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: As you get people coming into the city and urban areas,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: there's pressures on urban areas, there's unemployment UM and this
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: exacerbates where there are underlying tensions already or dissatisfaction and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: so UM. The drought is one of the factors that
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: can actually take a situation which is tense and difficult
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and spill it over into a real crisis. Helen Mountford
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: of the World Resources Institute, thank you so much for
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: being with us today. Thank you great to speak with you.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Benchmark will be back next week. Until then, you can
• 20:44
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• 20:51
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen. We love it. If you took
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  Speaker 1: the time to rate and review the show. Your feedback
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  Speaker 1: helps more listeners find us. You can also check us
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: out on Twitter. Follow me at at scott Landman Dan,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: you're at Moss Underscore Ecode. Robert Brand is at at
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: r O B Brand, and our guest Helen is at
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: at h M O u n t f O r D.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Number four Benchmark is produced by Toe for Foreheads. The
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: head of Bloomberg Podcast is Francesca Levy. Thanks for listening,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: See you next time.