The issues of climate change are real in all our lives, Minister in the Presidency responsible for the National Planning Commission Trevor Manuel has warned African leaders, as they prepare for the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen, at the Second Africa Water Week on Wednesday.

"As we prepare chapter and verse of our collective position to be argued, let us remind the world that the challenges we face range from deep hunger to national security. There is so much attention paid, and correctly so, to carbon emissions. So much of the focus is on low carbon emitting energy sources and the race is on to maximise the technology and spread of energy alternatives," said Manuel.

He added that with energy, there are alternatives, with water, there is none and urged African leaders to remind all the world's leaders that ‘Maji ni Uzima'; ‘Eau est Vie', "water is life" and that Africans have been robbed of water, life and that democracy itself is imperilled.

"What course should we Africans pursue - water for profit, or as a right? If we choose the latter, as I hope we will take this as a starting point, we need also to remind ourselves that we're living on earth in 2009 with the same amount of water that was available in 1900, while in the meantime the global population has quadrupled," argued Manuel.