Droughts cost nearly 300 billion euros per year, globally, warns the UN on Tuesday, on the second day of COP16 on desertification, in a report calling for urgent investments in nature-based solutions, such as reforestation.
Droughts, fueled by climate change and unsustainable management of water and land resources, are expected to affect 75% of the world’s population by 2050, says a UN report released Tuesday, titled “Economics of Drought: investing in nature-based solutions for drought resilience.”
The report illustrates how these nature-based solutions, such as “reforestation” or “grazing management” can both reduce losses and increase agricultural income while providing climate and environmental benefits.
A 2020 study published in the scientific journal Global Change Biology concluded that “nature-based interventions are most often found to be as effective, or even more effective” in 59% of cases, “than other interventions to combat the effects of climate change”.
The year 2024, which will almost certainly be the hottest ever recorded on Earth, was marked by several devastating droughts in the Mediterranean, Ecuador, Brazil, Morocco, Namibia, Malawi, causing fires, water shortages and of food.
Their cost “exceeds immediate agricultural losses, affects entire supply chains, reduces gross domestic product (GDP), impacts livelihoods and leads to long-term problems such as hunger, unemployment, migration,” said Kaveh Madani, co-author of the report and director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH).
“Managing our land and water resources sustainably is essential to boost economic growth and build the resilience of communities locked in cycles of drought,” said Andrea Meza, deputy executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on fight against desertification (CNULCD).
It is his organization which organizes COP16 which takes place this week in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“As discussions for a historic decision on drought are underway, the report calls on world leaders to recognize the excessive and avoidable costs of droughts, and to use proactive, nature-based solutions to secure human development in planetary boundaries,” she explained.
LNT with Afp
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