"From the past - into the Future"

DATE: 29 August 2019
TIME: 16:30 - 19:30
VENUE: WRC Offices, The Well, Pretoria

The majority of the world’s current environmental problems can be traced back to industrialization. Issues such as climate change, groundwater contamination, unsafe levels of air pollution, toxins in rivers and soils, overflowing levels of waste on land and in oceans, and loss of biodiversity and deforestation are negative consequences of industrialization.

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution gathers pace, innovations are becoming faster, more efficient and more widely accessible than before. Technology is becoming increasingly connected, and we are now seeing a convergence of the digital, physical and biological realms. Emerging technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) are enabling societal shifts by seismically impacting economies, values, identities and possibilities for future generations.

We have a unique opportunity to harness this Fourth Industrial Revolution – and the societal shifts it triggers – to help address environmental issues and transform how we manage our shared global environment. The Fourth Industrial Revolution could, however, also exacerbate existing threats to environmental security or create entirely new risks that will need to be considered and managed.

For seven consecutive years, water issues have ranked among the top five global risk factors in the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risks Report.3 In 2018, of those global risks perceived to have both the highest likelihood to manifest and the highest impact on the world in the next decade, all but one can be linked to water. Over this period of time, while other risks have emerged and disappeared – including the financial crisis and chronic diseases – water has remained.

It is within this context that the GWD will be hosting a social event to highlight some of our past experiences in terms of lessons learnt, and how that can frame and inform our thinking and planning to adapt to these new changes.

RSVP (email [email protected]) on/ before Monday 26 August 2019