The sixteenth United Nations conference on desertification (COP16) ended with a mixed result. After two weeks of negotiations, hosted by Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, delegates from 196 countries failed to reach an agreement. Discussions ran through until the morning of Saturday 14 December (the closing had been scheduled for the day before), but that was not enough to build sufficient consensus around the main expected objective: the adoption of a binding protocol to effectively combat desertification and, more broadly, the degradation of the Earth's landmasses.

Earth Negotiations Bulletin @IISD_ENB

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At @UNCCD #COP16Riyadh, President Abdulrahman Abdulmohsen AlFadley, Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture, Saudi Arabia, gaveled the largest-ever UNCCD COP to a close at 2:05 am on Saturday, 14 December 2024. #OurLandOurFuture #UNited4Land

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Hopes rest on an agreement at COP17 on desertification in Mongolia

The idea, in fact, was to reach an agreement similar to what the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 represented for the climate. Before COP16 got under way, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (Unccd), Ibrahim Thiaw, had called on participating nations to adopt "a bold decision, to reverse the trend towards the most widespread and most severe environmental catastrophe: drought". The same Mauritanian official then closed the conference by acknowledging that "the parties need more time to find agreement on the best way forward".

In the final communiqué issued by the Unccd, it is stated that "significant progress has been made, laying the groundwork for a future global framework to combat drought, which it is intended to reach at COP17, to be held in Mongolia in 2026". According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development (Iisd), the reality is that delegates found themselves at such an impasse as to have "no choice but to settle for a purely procedural decision, by which they agree to continue negotiations with a view to reaching an agreement next year".

Desertification and the climate crisis are closely linked

"Our work does not end with the close of COP16," declared United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed. "We must continue to counter the climate crisis, embracing inclusivity, innovation and resilience. Young people and indigenous peoples must be heard in this. Their testimonies, their voices and their creativity are indispensable for building a sustainable future with renewed hope for the generations to come."

The question of desertification is, in fact, closely linked to that of the climate. The rise in average global temperatures, and the resulting climate change, are causing an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Including drought. But that is not all: soil degradation is not the only environmental problem connected to the process of land aridification.

An area twice the size of Greenland degraded in just a few years

The Iisd highlights the long list of problems connected to this phenomenon, which "increases health risks and the spread of new diseases, acts as a driver of forced migration, and generates conflicts over the scramble for scarce resources". And, triggering a vicious cycle, it "contributes to exacerbating climate change, the loss of biodiversity, poverty, and food insecurity". The situation is, moreover, dramatic: approximately 40 per cent of the Earth's landmasses is already degraded. Between 2015 and 2019, no fewer than 100 million hectares of productive land were degraded every year (amounting to a total area twice the size of Greenland).

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Drought, desertification and land degradation pose growing threats to humanity.

This week, governments, businesses and civil society are uniting at #COP16Riyadh to advance solutions for land restoration and a sustainable future.

More from @UNCCD: unccd.int/cop16

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All of this is compounded by insufficient government action to protect territories. And, according to the Unccd's Global Land Outlook, without a profound change of course, the process of land degradation will force 700 million people to abandon their homes by 2050, due to a lack of adequate livelihoods or sufficient access to water resources.

Drought will affect 75% of the world's population by 2050

But what does changing course actually mean? The answer is multifaceted, and is one of the reasons for the substantial failure of COP16 in Riyadh. To effectively counter the process of desertification, it is necessary to change agricultural production methods, avoid the reckless exploitation of natural resources, protect natural vegetation, use appropriate irrigation methods, limit the use of pesticides and of concreting over land, tackle pollution, forgo mining operations in many cases, and seriously combat deforestation. And, of course, act against climate warming (a problem addressed, with scant results, at COP29 on climate in Baku, and which for this reason was not also up for discussion in Saudi Arabia).

It is clear that all of this entails considerable investment. And it is no coincidence that one of the issues that brought discussions in Riyadh to a standstill was precisely the financial one. Drought waves "fuelled by human-caused environmental destruction", according to the UN, already cost more than 300 billion dollars a year. And they will affect 75 per cent of the world's population by the middle of the next century.

Wealthy countries do not want a protocol and are pushing for a simple "framework"

According to a delegate from an African nation who preferred to remain anonymous, faced with such a scenario "for the first time Africa spoke with a single voice, calling for a protocol against drought". The continent is, moreover, the most exposed to the problem of desertification. But other delegates made it known that the developed world is opposing the idea of a protocol, which it regards as too binding. Wealthy countries are instead pushing for a simple "framework" to be adopted. But the African delegations, driven on by the groups of indigenous peoples, in turn consider this inadequate.

That time is running short is further confirmed by the figures: the Unccd has estimated that 1.5 billion hectares of land would need to be restored by the end of the decade to reverse the trend towards desertification. To do so, at least 2.6 trillion dollars will be required. In Riyadh, 12 billion were pledged by the Arab Coordination Group, in the hope that this would help mobilise public and private funds. For now, it amounts to a drop in the ocean. Or, more aptly, a small oasis in the desert.