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 attempting to water down calls to section out fossil fuels eventually week’s COP29 UN local weather talks in Azerbaijan.
READ: Dying lands: Desertification taking one other kind in PH
Nevertheless, 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 atmosphere minister Osama Faqeeha informed AFP.
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“Our land is arid. Our rainfall could be very little. And that is the truth. 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.
‘Below 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 international locations and the European Union, now says 1.5 billion hectares (3.7 billion acres) should 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 informed AFP, with out specifying a timeline. He mentioned Riyadh anticipated restoring “a number of million hectares of land” by 2030.
Up to now 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 mentioned.
Different methods to revive land embrace planting bushes, crop rotation, managing grazing and restoring wetlands.
The COP29 local weather talks yielded a tough received $300 billion local weather finance deal that poorer nations most vulnerable to worsening disasters dismissed as insultingly low.
UNCCD government secretary Ibrahim Thiaw informed AFP he hoped COP16 would end in an settlement to speed up land restoration and develop a “proactive” method to droughts.
“We now have already misplaced 40 % of our land and our soils,” Thiaw mentioned.
“International safety is actually at stake, and also you see it all around the world. Not solely in Africa, not solely within the Center East.”
Faqeeha mentioned he hoped the talks would deliver extra world consciousness to the menace posed by degradation and desertification.
“If we proceed to permit land to degrade, we may have enormous losses,” he mentioned.
“Land degradation now’s a serious phenomenon that’s actually occurring beneath the radar.”
Saudi Arabia’s excessive oil manufacturing, leading to eye-watering income for oil large Aramco, routinely attracts the ire of local weather activists.
However its publicity to desertification may give it extra credibility through the Riyadh talks.
“With the desertification struggle, (Saudi Arabia is) not essentially immediately contributing to the issue, whereas with local weather change, it clearly is,” mentioned 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 immediately affected.”
Freedom of speech
Hundreds of delegates have registered to attend the December 2-13 talks in Riyadh together with “near 100” authorities ministers, Thiaw mentioned.
French President Emmanuel Macron is because of attend the One Water Summit, happening 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 supposed to lure vacationers and traders.
As a UN-organized occasion, civil society together with campaigners will have the ability to participate, though it was not clear if protests — a rarity within the kingdom — could be allowed.
Saudi Arabia is hoping for sturdy, “constructive” civil society participation in COP16, Faqeeha mentioned.
“We’re welcoming all constructive engagement,” he informed AFP, whereas Thiaw mentioned all teams could be welcome to contribute and specific themselves.
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“In accordance with UN guidelines, in fact there are guidelines of engagement, and all people is assured freedom of speech,” Thiaw mentioned.