A park worker walks round within the Al-Ghat Nationwide Park on November 28, 2024. Agence France-Presse
RIYADH — Saudi Arabia will host the COP16 UN convention on land degradation and desertification subsequent week as the highest oil exporter pitches itself as an environmental defender regardless of criticism of its position at local weather talks.
UN Secretary-Common Antonio Guterres has referred to as the assembly for the United Nations Conference to Fight Desertification (UNCCD) a “moonshot second” to guard and restore land and reply to drought.
Activists accused Saudi Arabia, the world’s greatest oil exporter, of making an attempt to water down calls to section out fossil fuels ultimately week’s COP29 UN local weather talks in Azerbaijan.
READ: Dying lands: Desertification taking one other kind in PH
Nonetheless, the topic of desertification is near residence for the Gulf kingdom, which has one of many greatest deserts on the planet.
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“We’re a desert nation. We’re uncovered to the harshest mode of land degradation which is desertification,” deputy surroundings minister Osama Faqeeha instructed AFP.
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“Our land is arid. Our rainfall could be very little. And that is the fact. And now we have been coping with this for hundreds of years.”
Land degradation disrupts ecosystems and makes land much less productive for agriculture, resulting in meals shortages and spurring migration.
Land is taken into account degraded when its productiveness has been harmed by human actions like air pollution or deforestation. Desertification is an excessive type of degradation.
‘Beneath the radar’
The final gathering of events to the conference, in Ivory Coast in 2022, produced a dedication to “accelerating the restoration of 1 billion hectares of degraded land by 2030”.
However the UNCCD, which brings collectively 196 nations and the European Union, now says 1.5 billion hectares (3.7 billion acres) have to be restored by decade’s finish to fight crises together with escalating droughts.
READ: Spain worries over ‘lifeless land’ amid creeping desertification
Saudi Arabia is aiming to revive 40 million hectares of degraded land, Faqeeha instructed AFP, with out specifying a timeline. He stated Riyadh anticipated restoring “a number of million hectares of land” by 2030.
Thus far 240,000 hectares have been recovered utilizing measures together with banning unlawful logging and increasing the variety of nationwide parks from 19 in 2016 to greater than 500, Faqeeha stated.
Different methods to revive land embody planting bushes, crop rotation, managing grazing and restoring wetlands.
The COP29 local weather talks yielded a tough gained $300 billion local weather finance deal that poorer nations most prone to worsening disasters dismissed as insultingly low.
UNCCD government secretary Ibrahim Thiaw instructed AFP he hoped COP16 would lead to an settlement to speed up land restoration and develop a “proactive” strategy to droughts.
“We’ve already misplaced 40 p.c of our land and our soils,” Thiaw stated.
“International safety is basically at stake, and also you see it everywhere in the world. Not solely in Africa, not solely within the Center East.”
Faqeeha stated he hoped the talks would deliver extra international consciousness to the risk posed by degradation and desertification.
“If we proceed to permit land to degrade, we may have big losses,” he stated.
“Land degradation now’s a serious phenomenon that’s actually taking place below the radar.”
Saudi Arabia’s excessive oil manufacturing, leading to eye-watering earnings for oil big Aramco, routinely attracts the ire of local weather activists.
However its publicity to desertification might give it extra credibility in the course of the Riyadh talks.
“With the desertification combat, (Saudi Arabia is) not essentially instantly contributing to the issue, whereas with local weather change, it clearly is,” stated Patrick Galey, senior fossil fuels investigator for International Witness.
“Saudi Arabia can, with some legitimacy, declare to be standing up for the little man in terms of desertification, as a result of it’s instantly affected.”
Freedom of speech
1000’s of delegates have registered to attend the December 2-13 talks in Riyadh together with “near 100” authorities ministers, Thiaw stated.
French President Emmanuel Macron is because of attend the One Water Summit, going down on the sidelines of COP16 on December 3.
Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has been criticized for mounting repression at the same time as the dominion pursues head-spinning social reforms meant to lure vacationers and traders.
As a UN-organized occasion, civil society together with campaigners will be capable of participate, though it was not clear if protests — a rarity within the kingdom — can be allowed.
Saudi Arabia is hoping for sturdy, “constructive” civil society participation in COP16, Faqeeha stated.
“We’re welcoming all constructive engagement,” he instructed AFP, whereas Thiaw stated all teams can be welcome to contribute and specific themselves.
“In accordance with UN guidelines, after all there are guidelines of engagement, and all people is assured freedom of speech,” Thiaw stated.
