Two-Hour Lines, Packed Rooms Show Urgency at UN Water Meeting
The United Nations holds its first water conference since 1977 as climate change threatens global supplies and 2 billion people still lack safe drinking water.
Residents wait in line to fill pots from a water truck in Chennai, India, in 2021.
Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/BloombergThe United Nations marked World Water Day on Wednesday by hosting its first water conference since 1977, and there was clearly pent-up appetite to discuss Earth’s most life-giving element.
The high interest seemed to have caught the international organization off guard. Attendees waited in line for more than two hours to pick up pre-approved passes and crowds packed into too-small rooms for panels such as “Accelerating Women’s Inclusion In Water” and “Private Sector Investment Commitment to Water Innovation.”