The News
A United Nations report Monday found that more than three quarters of the world’s land became permanently drier in the last 30 years, with rising temperatures and climate-change induced drought escalating the problem. The study was released as global delegates met at the COP16 summit on desertification in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh.
Led by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, the summit aims to restore 1.5 billion hectares of desertified land by 2030, and is seeking $2.6 trillion in investment to restore salvageable land and protect at-risk regions from degrading.
“This analysis finally dispels an uncertainty that has long surrounded global drying trends,” a UNCCD representative said, adding that desertification and the subsequent loss of arable land represents an “existential threat affecting billions around the globe.”
Some 2.3 billion people live in expanding drylands, the report found, with South Sudan, Tanzania, and China being the countries most affected.
SIGNALS
Saudi Arabia under scrutiny as COP16 host
As host, Saudi Arabia is experiencing somewhat of a role change after being accused of blocking key resolutions at the UN’s COP29 climate conference just last month. The world’s largest oil producer, Saudi is also home to one of the world’s largest deserts. The kingdom’s life-threatening exposure to desertification means that “Saudi Arabia can, with some legitimacy, claim to be standing up for the little guy,” a climate activist told The New Arab. Still, Riyadh is reluctant to link desertification to climate. Saudi Arabia could face “significant international scrutiny” if it evades climate change and limits the talks to “tree planting initiatives,” another activist told The Guardian. The country’s environment minister pushed back on that criticism: “This Cop is not about Saudi Arabia, it’s about the whole world and global challenges.”
Expectations of financial commitments in Riyadh low after Baku
Much like November’s COP29 and another UN conference on plastic pollution, COP16 delegates are negotiating over investments and other funding for land restoration and desertification prevention for the worst-affected countries. UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw said that a rebalancing of private versus public investment in land protections is necessary: A key driver of land degradation is food production, which is a private sector issue, while governments are largely expected to pay for the consequences. COP16 delegates face an uphill battle if they are to meet its goals: “I wouldn’t hold my breath for COP16 to yield a tenable solution to desertification,” one expert said.
Africa’s Sahel region at the front line of desertification
One of the world’s most vulnerable regions to desertification — the Sahel —is also among the most unstable, and African countries there have experienced a “domino effect” of successive coups since 2020, The Africa Report wrote. “When they no longer have grazing land, when conflict is rife in their communities, people either move or… are easily attracted to these extremist groups,” an expert told the outlet. The region has become so volatile that existing initiatives like the $33 billion Great Green Wall reforestation project are struggling to continue their work, further exacerbating the problem. African countries have had to divert as much as 9% of their national budget to responding to climate emergencies, the World Meteorological Organization wrote.
