Jordan, the second most water-scarce country in the world, signed a memorandum with Israel at the COP27 Climate Summit to rehabilitate the Jordan River – its main source of fresh water – and the Dead Sea; but this year in COP28 The Hashemite kingdom is looking for alternatives to avoid agreements, and even looks, with its neighbor over the war in Gaza.
Musa Hantash, Jordanian deputy and former engineer for the Ministry of Water Resources, tells EFE that not counting on Israel for a water exchange agreement “could have been a challenge for Jordan or a pressure tool” but, given the political situation current situation and the Jordanian position regarding the Gaza crisis, “is stronger than all the agreements and all memorandum of understanding”.
In other words: Jordan prefers to be thirsty than to agree on anything with Israel.
Jordan is one of the countries that has shown the greatest rejection against the offensive on the Gaza Strip, and even announced that it would consider the forced displacement of the Palestinian population from the territory “a declaration of war.”
What will Jordan do without Israel?
Under the 1994 peace treaty between the two countries, Israel agreed to supply Jordan with 50 million cubic meters of water from Lake Tiberias to the Jordan River.
But in 2021, the Jordanian Government was forced to purchase additional quantities of Israeli water due to shortages in the country, whose water needs were estimated at 109 million cubic meters in 2019, due to the marked drop in rainfall.
According to the UN, Jordan is the second most water-scarce country in the world: its annual renewable water resources are less than 100 cubic meters per person.
Hantash asserts that “Jordan has many alternatives for the issue of water” and is looking for “companies to support it” for some projects and strategies it is carrying out, such as the National Water Transportation Project, which could provide some 300 million cubic meters of desalinated water per year.
The Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman al Safadi, stated on November 16 that his country will not sign any agreement with Israel to exchange water for energy because “they cannot imagine a Jordanian minister sitting next to an Israeli minister to sign an agreement while “Israel kills our people in Gaza.”
Just over a year ago, at COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh (Egypt), both countries signed a memorandum of understanding to advance linked clean energy and sustainable water desalination projects. to the 2021 Prosperity Project.
According to that declaration of intent, both will build a 600-megawatt solar photovoltaic plant in Jordan, which will produce clean energy for export to Israel.
In exchange, Israel was going to build a desalination plant to sustainably purify water to send about 200 million cubic meters annually to Jordan.
The development of both projects continued until the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip, but Safadi interrupted plans for the implementation and renewal of the agreement, which was expected to close before COP28.
The problem? Water management
Hantash affirms that “the basic problem is water management, and not the lack of resources.”
The regional director of the World Foundation for the Agriculture and Energy Program in Jordan, Lamiaa Al Dabas, assures EFE that the water security situation in Jordan is “difficult and bad.”
“For twenty years, Jordan has pumped water excessively, especially groundwater, which has caused a deterioration in quality, in addition to consuming non-renewable sources,” he explains.
It indicates that “climate change and rising temperatures led to a reduction in the water budget,” in addition to the fact that part of the water loss occurs due to poor management due to “the lack of adequate infrastructure for its transfer.”
The head of the Ministry of Water Resources, Amr Salama, told EFE that the pressure on water in Jordan has increased in recent years due to the reception of 1.3 million Syrian refugees, in addition to the increase in demand for other uses and the development in Jordan.
Currently, only two water basins are in good condition, out of a total of twelve that the country has, while the percentage of water storage andn the dams it is only 19%, according to Salama.
EFE
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