Drought, degrading land take centrestage at UN talks in Riyadh

UN report warns of worsening droughts and desertification due to climate change, urging global cooperation for lasting solutions.

Much of Earth's lands are drying out and damaging the ability of plant and animal life to survive, according to a United Nations report released Monday at talks where countries are working to address the problem.

The report was released at the U.N. summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on combating desertification — once-fertile lands turning into deserts because of hotter temperatures from human-caused climate change, lack of water and deforestation. It found that more than three-quarters of the world's land experienced drier conditions from 1970 to 2020 than the previous thirty-year period.

“The drier climates now affecting vast lands across the globe will not return to how they were," said Ibrahim Thiaw, chief of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, which is facilitating the Riyadh talks. “This change is redefining life on Earth.”

At the talks, which started last week and are set to end on Friday, nations are discussing how better they can help the world deal with droughts — a more urgent lack of water over shorter periods — and the more permanent problem of degrading land.

If global warming trends continue, nearly five billion people — including in most of Europe, parts of the western U.S., Brazil, eastern Asia and central Africa — will be affected by the drying by the end of the century, up from a quarter of the world's population today, the report warned.

UNCCD's chief scientist Barron Orr warned drier land could lead to “potentially catastrophic impacts affecting access to water that could push people and nature even closer to disastrous tipping points,” where humans are no longer able to reverse damaging effects of climate change.

Sergio Vicente-Serrano, one of the lead authors of the report, said that as the atmosphere heats up because the burning of coal, oil and gas spews planet-warming emissions, it leads to more evaporation on the ground. That makes water less available for humans, plants and animals, making it harder to survive.