Water Never Stops: Building Climate-Resilient, Energy-Efficient Water Services

Reliable water supply and wastewater services are essential for public health, economic stability and climate resilience. Yet the water sector faces a dual challenge: it is an energy consumer while becoming increasingly vulnerable to droughts, floods, water scarcity, extreme weather and disruptions to energy supply.

How can water utilities reduce greenhouse gas emissions while ensuring that essential services remain reliable under growing climate and energy pressures?

This international panel brings together perspectives from Ukraine and other countries to explore practical solutions for building climate-resilient, energy-efficient water infrastructure.

The discussion will focus on three key areas:

• Climate resilience and energy efficiency: Modernising water supply and wastewater infrastructure, reducing water and energy losses, improving treatment processes and integrating climate risks into long-term planning.
• Renewable energy and energy security: Exploring how solar power, biogas and other decentralised energy solutions can reduce emissions and operating costs while strengthening the continuity of essential services.
• Investment readiness and scaling up: Identifying the regulatory, institutional and financial conditions needed to move from individual projects towards systematic modernisation, including the role of international financial institutions, grants, loans and blended finance.

Ukraine's experience offers a particularly relevant perspective. During Russia's full-scale war, damage to energy infrastructure and repeated power outages have threatened the continuity of water services. Decentralised renewable energy solutions have demonstrated their potential to strengthen the resilience of critical infrastructure.

Through its Solar Aid for Ukraine campaign, NGO Ecoclub has implemented 104 solar power plants, including 23 at water utility facilities, demonstrating the practical potential of distributed renewable energy in challenging conditions.

Bringing together representatives of water utilities, municipalities, international organisations, financial institutions and climate experts, the panel will exchange practical experiences and identify opportunities to scale solutions that combine climate adaptation, emissions reduction and reliable water services.

The central question: How can proven solutions become financially viable, scalable investments that strengthen water security and climate resilience?