By Randeep Ramesh
    The Guardian UK

    Monday 22 January 2007

    New Delhi - The world is running out of water and needs a radical plan to tackle shortages that threaten the ability of humanity to feed itself, according to Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN's Millennium Project.

    Professor Sachs, who is credited with sparking pop star Bono's crusade for African development, told an environment conference in Delhi that the world simply had "no more rivers to take water from."

    The breadbaskets of India and China were facing severe water shortages and neither Asian giant could use the same strategies for increasing food production that has fed millions in the last few decades.

    "In 2050 we will have 9 billion people and average income will be four times what it is today. India and China have been able to feed their populations because they use water in an unsustainable way. That is no longer possible," he said.

    Since Asia's green revolution, which began in the 1960s and saw a transformation of agricultural production, the amount of land under irrigation has tripled. However, many parts of the continent have reached the limits of their water supplies. "The Ganges [in India] and the Yellow river [in China] no longer flow. There is so much silting up and water extraction upstream they are pretty stagnant," said Prof Sachs.

    The US academic said that the mechanisms of shrinking water resources are not well understood. "We need to do for water what we did for climate change. How do we recharge aquifers? What about ground water use? There's no policy anywhere in place at the moment."

    The US academic said that the rise of Asia was altering the world's resources in an unprecedented way - for the first time humans were shaping the environment rather than nature.

    "China is on course to be the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide by 2010 in the world. India is building eight 4,000MW power plants - are they ready for carbon capture? I don't think so."

    The British government has been trying to persuade a reluctant New Delhi to embrace green technology. Officials in India still talk about the need for accelerating growth and see tackling climate change as a brake on the economy.

    David Miliband, the environment minister, said he was confident that the country would join a scheme for managing greenhouse gas emissions after the present Kyoto protocol runs out in 2012.

    "India is already the fourth largest emitter [in the world]. It is already being affected by climate change and I have been encouraged to see that ministers here are engaging with the issue," said Mr Miliband.