The United Nations used its first conference on water security in almost half a century on Wednesday to exhort governments to better manage one of humanity’s shared resources.

A quarter of the world’s population relies on unsafe drinking water while half lacks basic sanitation, the U.N. said. Meanwhile, nearly three quarters of recent disasters have been related to water.

“We are draining humanity’s lifeblood through vampiric overconsumption and unsustainable use, and evaporating it through global heating,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Ensuring access to clean drinking water and sanitation is part of the 17-point to-do list the U.N. has set for sustainable development, alongside ending hunger and poverty, achieving gender equality, and taking action on climate change.

The three-day conference beginning on Wednesday in New York is not intended to produce the kind of binding accord that emerged from climate meetings in Paris in 2015, or a framework like the one set for nature protection in Montreal in 2022.

Instead, the aim is for a “Water Action Agenda” that will contain voluntary commitments and create “political momentum”.

The United States said it would invest $49 billion in water and sanitation at home and around the world.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said this money would “help create jobs, prevent conflicts, safeguard public health, reduce the risk of famine and hunger, and enable us to respond to climate change and natural disasters”. She gave no timeline for the investments or details on how much money would be spent where.

Hundreds of action plans were sent to the U.N. before the conference started, but the World Resources Institute research group said that while “some commitments offer inspiration, more of them miss the mark”, variously lacking funding or performance targets, or neglecting to address climate change.

WRI singled out two projects for praise: one to spend $21.2 million through 2029 on “climate-smart” agriculture and wetland restoration in the desertifying Niger River basin, and another from 1,729 companies that calculate they can make water-related investments worth $436 billion.

Scientists, economists and policy experts grouped together by the government of the Netherlands in the Global Commission on the Economics of Water recommended phasing out some $700 billion in agricultural and water subsidies, and facilitating partnerships between development finance institutions and private investors to improve water systems.

Just outside Indonesia’s planned new capital on Borneo island, an orangutan catches a banana with one hand, thrown by a conservationist on a boat, while her other hand clings to a tree branch.

She is one of 127 orangutans that the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) is caring for in the Samboja district, East Kalimantan. They have lost their homes due to deforestation, often linked to coal mining, and palm oil and timber plantations.

But the giant apes could face an even bigger threat as Southeast Asia’s largest country builds from scratch Nusantara – a new $32 billion city.

The government has promised to protect wildlife and undertake major reforestation in parts of the capital, which has been marketed to investors as a smart and green city.

But environmentalists are wary that construction in an area spanning nearly 260,000 hectares (642,474 acres) – almost four times the size of Singapore – would disturb some of Borneo’s endemic fauna, including endangered long-nosed monkeys, Irrawaddy dolphins and orangutans.

“Our biggest concern is Balikpapan bay will turn into a giant pond, a place for residual waste from Nusantara’s activities,” said Mappaselle, a director with local environment group Pokja Pesisir.

About 400 hectares of mangrove forests along the coastline of Balikpapan bay have already been cleared according to the group’s estimation, to make way for a coal port and oil refinery.

He feared more could be razed when a new toll road is built connecting Nusantara to the nearest city of Balikpapan, as well as a port to bring in construction materials.

The Nusantara Capital City Authority said mangroves would be replanted in other areas and guidelines have been made for workers encountering an animal.

“It’s a very high concern of how we’ll try to have harmony between people, nature and culture…because that’s the soul of the city,” Nusantara chief Bambang Susantono said.

Foundations are being laid for government buildings. Later this year, homes will be built for 16,000 civil servants, military and police officers due to move in next year.

For now, conservationists hope the government stays true to its pledge to care for animals.

“We hope that with the capital city being here, we can pave the way for animals to live side by side (with humans),” said BOSF manager Aldrianto Priadjati.

“At least provide an area for orangutans so they can live a better life.”

At least nine people were dead and 44 injured in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a government official said, after a magnitude 6.5 earthquake with its epicentre in Afghanistan struck late on Tuesday.

At least 19 houses were partially damaged by the earthquake, Abdul Basit, a senior official in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government told Reuters on Wednesday.