At the opening ceremony of COP16, Saudi Arabia was officially elected as President of the sixteenth Conference of the Parties of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP16). The official recognition of Saudi Arabia’s UNCCD COP16 Presidency marks the beginning of a two-year tenure to drive international action on land restoration and drought resilience.
Policymakers, international organizations, businesses, NGOs, and key stakeholders are convening in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from December 2 to 13 under the theme “Our Land” to seek urgent international solutions to the pressing global crises of land degradation, drought, and desertification.
COP16 in Riyadh is the largest-ever UNCCD COP, for the first time featuring a Green Zone to mobilize multilateral action and help drive funding for land restoration initiatives. Bolstering global drought resilience is a focal point of COP16 in Riyadh, with three major international announcements taking place on the first day alone.
Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership launched
COP16 witnessed the launch of the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership which seeks to synergize and amplify international action on drought resilience and shift global response from one of reactive crises management to proactive prevention. The initiative received additional pledges of $1 billion from the OPEC Fund and $1 billion from the Islamic Development Bank. This comes in addition to the $150 million that Saudi Arabia pledged to fund the initiative.
During the official opening of the conference, UNCCD COP16 President and Saudi Arabia Minister of Environment, Water, and Agriculture, Eng. Abdulrahman Abdulmohsen AlFadley urged the international community to deliver decisive action as the UNCCD targets the restoration of 1.5 billion hectares of land by 2030.
“More than 100 million hectares of land is degraded every year, impacting over 3 billion people and leading to more $6 trillion of lost ecosystem services, whilst driving food and water insecurity. This COP will be a historic moment to limit land degradation and drought around the world,” added Minister AlFadley.
Initiatives to combat drought
Meanwhile, the launch of the International Drought Resilience Observatory and Global Drought Atlas will help increase monitoring, prevention, and awareness of drought around the world.
AlFadley added that Saudi Arabia looks forward to intensifying international efforts at UNCCD COP16 to address major environmental challenges, and enhance integration with other international environmental agreements, including the Rio Conventions on climate change and biodiversity, all to achieve ambitious outcomes that make a qualitative leap in land conservation, reduce land degradation, and build global capacity to combat drought.
During the opening ceremony, Ibrahim Thiaw, UNCCD Executive Secretary paid tribute to Saudi Arabia’s leadership on land degradation, saying: “I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its vision and leadership in elevating the global land restoration and drought resilience agenda; whether through the G20, hosting this landmark COP and building its legacy, the Saudi Green Initiative, or, most recently, the Middle East Green Initiative.”
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Agriculture accounts for 80 percent of deforestation
On the eve of the multilateral talks in Riyadh, the UNCCD issued a new report in collaboration with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, highlighting the growing global emergency caused by land degradation. Key findings outlined the damage from unsustainable agricultural practices, with agriculture accounting for 80 percent of deforestation and 70 percent of freshwater use.
Meanwhile, 23 percent of greenhouse gas emissions stem from agriculture, forestry, and land use. In addition, 46 percent of the global land area is classified as drylands according to the latest UNCCD report.
