Water carbon tax to be around one cent per 1,000 litres

A carbon tax on water of one cent per cubic metre is to be imposed on consumers as part of the green taxes due to come into effect soon, the Nicosia Water board said on Friday in an announcement to mark international World Water Day.

There are 1,000 litres in a cubic metre. For perspective, a five-minute shower uses around 75–90 litres, which rises to 160 litres for a 10-minute shower and 240 litres for a 15-minute shower.

No timeframe has been given for the introduction of the new charge. According to the water board, before additional charges are imposed on the consumer, the government needs to “exhaust all the possibilities of reducing the operating costs” for the desalination plants.

The water board in its announcement said the energy consumed by desalination plants was damaging to the environment as they are fuelled by conventional energy.

“The government should require private operators of desalination plants to reduce their dependence on conventional energy and to produce or purchase electricity from renewable sources,” the announcement said.

The provision for the new water tax was incorporated into the Cyprus Recovery and Resilience Plan three years ago but an actual amount was not mentioned. The plan states that overall reforms would “also entail the gradual introduction of a levy on water that will reflect the scarcity of this natural resource and the cost to the environment of its use”.

Cyprus supplements its low natural water supply with desalinated seawater to meet drinking water needs. The plan said this is an energy-intensive process, costly and polluting, relying on fossil fuels and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. “Climate change is exacerbating the country’s need to improve the water management processes,” it adds.

It goes on to discuss the message from this year’s World Water Day theme: “Water for Prosperity and Peace”.

In this context, it talks about cross-border cooperation.

“This year’s World Water Day theme highlights the critical role of transboundary water cooperation in promoting peace and sustainable development. Transboundary waters account for 60 percent of the world’s freshwater flows – yet only 24 of the 153 countries that share transboundary waters have their entire transboundary watershed covered by cooperative agreements,” it said.

“In divided Cyprus with the ceasefire line separating the two major communities of the country, a bi-communal agreement regarding the provision of drinking water through the Green Line for the benefit of the citizens could be included in the public debate as a confidence-building measure” .

The water board also spoke about the possibility of drought, given the mild winter 2023-2024. It said that actions were being put into play to increase storage capacity in order to continue uninterrupted supply.

As of Friday, inflow this season stood at around 20 million cubic metres compared with around 48 million cubic metres in the winter of 2022-2023 and 154 million cubic metres the previous winter. The reservoirs now stand at 47 per cent of capacity.