Connecting water and energy around the Mediterranean

Revolve speaks with Ciarán Ó Cuinn, Director of the Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC) in Muscat, Oman, about connecting water and energy around the Mediterranean.

This interview featured in Revolve’s special report on Water & Energy around the Mediterranean on pages 40-43.

In delivering on any massive regional or global grand challenge you need three actors working together: governments, academia and business. In essence, what needs to happen is this: governments need to set tough but technologically-achievable  targets, with underpinning and common changes in public policy; academia and researchers need to find the means of delivering on those targets; and the enterprise sector then needs to fund and commercialize these means. This all has to happen across borders, cultures and traditions. It’s not easy but there is no alternative and the very act of engaging with the challenge will bring an unprecedented degree of collaboration and joint-purpose.

Disparate, disjointed initiatives will not work. It is a simple reality that in the realm of water, energy, food security and climate change we are interdependent. The Mediterranean nations need to work together. That means more than government officials, it means government, academia and enterprise designing and delivering on simple regional targets for energy efficiency in desalination, water quality, agricultural standards, and anti-pollution measures. It means helping those who have less money or infrastructure to meet the targets. It means sharing capacity and responsibility.

Behind the targets we need public policy support for funded research programs, knowledge exchange to deliver the practical means for targets to be reached, and a regulatory environment to facilitate commercialization of these solutions. The targets we pick cannot be nebulous or general; they need to be specific and binding.