12. Considering the number of environmental challenges that our world is currently facing as a result of climate change, which in itself causes extreme weather conditions, such as droughts, scarcity, and flooding, which negatively impact human security, 13. Recalling the 1992 United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Convention on the Protection and Use of Trans-boundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention), 14. Recalling the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses, 15. Recalling the 1994 UN Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, particularly in Africa, 16. Recalling the UN’s General Assembly Resolution on the Law of Trans-boundary Aquifers, 17. Recalling the UN General Assembly’s explicit recognition in 2010 of the human right to water and sanitation, 18. Recalling the seventh UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG), the aim of which was to halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015, and noting that the world has met the target of halving the proportion of people without access to improved sources of water five years ahead of schedule, but despite progress in improving adequate sanitation, 2.4 billion people are still using unimproved sanitation facilities, 19. Remembering the EU Water Framework Directive, which aims to protect ground and surface waters and the achievement of good ecological status by 2015, and that the WFD obliges EU Member States to draft River Basin Management Plans to protect each of the 110 river basin districts in the EU territory, 20. Recalling the EU’s Nitrates Directive, the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, and the Bathing Water Directive, which aim to safeguard and enhance Europe’s coastal waters, 21. Recalling the importance of bilateral, regional, and multilateral legal frameworks which have made possible the conclusion of a number of treaties, protocols, and conventions on the use, development, and protection of trans-boundary watercourses and related ecosystems, 22. Recalling the Geneva Convention on Long-Range Trans-boundary Air Pollution, the EU’s Directive on Ambient Air Quality, the National Emission Ceilings Directive, the Air Quality Framework Directive, the Directive on the limit values for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter and lead in ambient air; the Directive on the limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide in ambient air; the Ozone Directive and the Directive relating to arsenic, cadmium, mercury, nickel and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which have an impact on atmospheric water, 45