The fight against drought is among the main points on the agenda of the fifteenth “COP desertification”, which opened on Monday and will run until May 20 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Organized by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the event received less media coverage than the now famous “climate COPs”. It is nonetheless equally crucial: according to the report Global Land Outlook of the UNCCD, published at the end of April, up to 40% of the lands are degraded in the world, that is to say suffer from a more or less serious lack of nutrients, to such an extent that their productivity declines and that they sometimes turn into unproductive dust. With, as a result, impacts on food security, health, poverty, migration or the risk of conflict.
“With the worsening of climate change, droughts are becoming more frequent and deadly, they cost the economy of the affected countries very dearly and have extremely serious social consequences”, indicates to Release the Mauritanian Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the UNCCD. He cited in particular the current dramatic situation in the Horn of Africa, where “20 million people are threatened with famine between Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya” and or “even camels are dying, although they are known to be drought resistant, because there are not enough water points”.
“No country is immune”
Land degradation, aggravated by drought, also causes lung diseases such as tuberculosis. “The sand winds coming from the Sahara, the Middle East or China, these are microparticles that we breatheexplains Ibrahim Thiaw. And the dryness of the air causes meningitis: there are episodes during dry periods in the countries of the Sahel, which stop with the first rain. Moreover, he points out, women and children in developing countries are “disproportionately affected by land degradation and drought: men have migrated, mothers are forced to farm but they don’t own the land.”
Catastrophic droughts do not only concern Africa, far from it. “It’s a global phenomenon, no region or country in the world is immune”, insists Ibrahim Thiaw. This year, countries such as Spain, Portugal or Morocco are affected, it is also the case of the United States, the Middle East or Chechnya, in Russia. “You get the impression that Europeans see themselves as being protected from drought and desertification, but the South of France is already affected by desertification, also illustrates Ibrahim Thiaw. Even Germany, where I live, is experiencing such drought this year that the level of the Rhine is dropping to the point of affecting navigation on this extremely important economic artery.”
“Urgency to act”
According to Ibrahim Thiaw, “there are currently no strong enough tools at the international level to deal with these drought issues”. Hence the importance of discussions on the subject during this COP15. Unfortunately, the negotiations risk being “very hot”according to the executive secretary. “We have 197 member parties of this convention and not everyone has the same answer, the points of view diverge on the solutions to be implemented according to the regions”. “There is an urgent need to act, Emmanuel Macron said at the opening of the summit in a video message. Desertification and land degradation are not inevitable. These crises are not irreversible and solutions exist.”
Among the panoply of responses envisaged are the establishment of early warning systems, the preparation of populations via “response plans” or the creation of insurance to compensate affected populations. But also the development of water points so as to reduce the risk of conflict between herders and farmers, particularly in the Sahel. Some countries are advocating for the establishment of legally binding measures. Above all, emphasizes Ibrahim Thiaw, we must “working with nature” in order to strengthen the resilience of natural areas and make the consequences of droughts less dramatic.