UNCCD COP16 Spotlights Drought But Fails to Agree on a Legally Binding Protocol

Combating Desertification and Drought, Conferences, Development & Aid, Environment, Featured, Global, Headlines, Middle East & North Africa, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Combating Desertification and Drought

COP16 in Riyadh launched a drought resilience initiative, which also saw contributions of over USD 12 billion for land restoration and drought resilience. Credit: IISD/ENB

COP16 in Riyadh launched a drought resilience initiative, which also saw contributions of over USD 12 billion for land restoration and drought resilience. Credit: IISD/ENB

RIYADH & HYDERABAD, Dec 17 2024 (IPS) – The 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP 16) concluded early hours of Saturday with a renewed focus on building drought resilience globally. However, the COP also failed to agree on bringing a legally binding drought protocol. Like the biodiversity and climate change COPs held earlier in the year, COP16 also failed to finish in time and ended by postponing several key decisions to COP17 scheduled to be held in 2026.


The COP started on December 2 in Riyadh, under the presidency of Saudi Arabia. On Saturday, in a press statement, Osama Faqeeha, Deputy Minister for Environment, Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, and Advisor to the UNCCD COP16 Presidency, claimed that the conference was a resounding success because it had attracted the largest number of participants till date, representing diverse sectors.

“The Riyadh Action Agenda has already helped galvanize state and non-state actors around the world. However, COP16 in Riyadh is just the beginning of its impact, and Saudi Arabia’s UNCCD COP16 Presidency will continue to engage with everyone, from the investment community, NGOs and scientists to Indigenous Peoples and farmers, to maximize its lasting global legacy,” he said.

One of the biggest success stories scripted in Riyadh was the launch of a drought resilience initiative, which also saw contributions of over USD 12 billion for land restoration and drought resilience. Launching the initiative on the first day of the COP, Saudi Arabia announced it was contributing USD 150 million for its operationalization. The rest of the fund was pledged by the Arab Coordination Group, which has 22 member countries, including the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain. The initiative would aim to support 80 of the world’s most vulnerable countries to increase their capacity to combat the effects of drought and build their drought resilience.

“The Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership will work to deliver a transformative shift in how drought is tackled around the world. Harnessing the collective impact of major global institutions will move drought management beyond reactive crisis response through enhancing early warning systems, financing, vulnerability assessments, and drought risk mitigation. This stands to be a landmark moment for combating international drought, and we are calling on countries, companies, organizations, scientists, NGOs, financial institutions and communities to join this pivotal partnership,” Faqeeha said.

AI For Combating Drought

As part of the Riyadh Action Agenda, Saudi Arabia’ also launched the International Drought Resilience Observatory (IDRO). This is the first artificial intelligence-driven global platform that will help countries assess and improve their ability to cope with more severe droughts. This innovative tool is an initiative of the International Drought Resilience Alliance (IDRA).

Saudi Arabia also announced the launch of an international sand and dust storm monitoring initiative. This effort, part of a regional early warning system, aims to complement existing efforts overseen by the World Meteorological Organization. Based in Jeddah, the Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System (SDS-WAS) increases the number of global World Meteorological Organization-affiliated nodes to four. Saudi Arabia also pledged $10 million in funding over the next five years to enhance early warning systems in countries currently unable to monitor for sand and dust storms.

However, despite their best efforts, the COP16 could not bring all negotiators to agree on its proposal of creating a legally binding treaty for action on drought. The protocol, if agreed upon, could have been a huge step forward, having the world’s first legally binding global treaty on drought, land degradation and desertification, equivalent to the UNFCCC’s Paris Agreement and the Global Biodiversity Framework.

Paving Greater Participation of Youths and IPLCs

Among the other decisions taken at the COP16 is the creation of a Youth Caucus and an Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Caucus. Though a caucus within the COP has an advisory role without any voting power, it can help broaden the participation of the Indigenous people and provide an opportunity to them for lobbying for language concerning Indigenous issues in the future negotiation texts.

Reacting to the development, Jennifier Corpuz, leader of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB), an umbrella organization of Indigenous Peoples and local communities from seven global regions, said that it was a decision that had been long overdue.

“The decision by the UNCCD to support the development of a Terms of Reference for an Indigenous Peoples Caucus and a local communities caucus is a great development for enhancing rights-holder engagement in the work of the UNCCD. It is the last Rio Convention to support the establishment of an IP Caucus and the first to explicitly support a specific local community Caucus, so it is about time, even long overdue. The hope is that the new UNCCD IP and LC caucuses learn from the nest practices and enhanced participation arrangements established in the other Rio Conventions and avoid the mistakes,” Corpuz told IPS News.

UN Warns Against Business-As-Usual Approach

Meanwhile, throughout COP16 in Riyadh, the UNCCD released several major publications highlighting the urgency of tackling land degradation, desertification and drought. The UNCCD’s financial risk assessment flagged that presently there is a $278 billion annual shortfall in funding for land restoration and drought resilience and emphasized the urgent need for private sector engagement.

The UNCCD also issued a landmark report into the growing global expansion of drylands, finding three-quarters of the Earth’s land became permanently drier over the last three decades. In addition, the rate of land degradation has rapidly increased. As a result, there are now 1.6 billion hectares of degraded land instead of 1 billion hectares in 2015. This means the convention’s flagship program, Land Degradation Neutrality, which aims to restore all degraded land by 2023, now also urgently needs a greater level of efforts as there is now half a billion more hectares to be restored. If this was to be achieved, the parties must shun their business-as-usual approach and put greater focus on land restoration, said Ibrahim Thiaw, the Executive Secretary of UNCCD.

“Land Degradation Neutrality is an ambition that was adopted in 2015 based on the science and it is still valid. If we manage to achieve it as it was conceived in 2015, that is a big step forward. Unfortunately, with more recent studies and data, we realized that we need to restore even more land by 2030 than it was envisaged in 2015. It doesn’t change or diminish the importance of the decision made in 2015. Because now we have updated science, we know that we need to restore 1.5 billion hectares of land instead of 1 billion hectares by 2030 in order to have equilibrium in the world. So basically, we have science to tell the decision-makers of the world that business as usual does not work,” Thiaw told IPS News.

The next UNCCD COP will be held in 2026 under the presidency of the Government of Mongolia. With the most ambitious of the decision—a global drought protocol—left unreached, onus is now on the UN to build a consensus among parties on a global drought agreement before they convene at COP17.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

In Zimbabwe, Women Are Leading the Battle Against Climate Change

Africa, Africa Climate Wire, Civil Society, Climate Change, Combating Desertification and Drought, Development & Aid, Environment, Featured, Food and Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition, Food Sustainability, Headlines, Humanitarian Emergencies, Natural Resources, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations, Women & Economy

Food and Agriculture

Some farmers buying seed at discounted prices during a seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPSome of the farmers purchasing seed at discounted prices during a seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

Some farmers buy seed at discounted prices during a seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

MAFAURE, Zimbabwe, Dec 11 2024 (IPS) – When Susan Chinyengetere started to focus on farming in her home village in south-eastern Zimbabwe, she wondered if she could earn a living and raise her children.

With climate catastrophes ravaging the country, her hesitation on rain-fed agriculture worsened. But two years later, the 32-year-old mother of two from Mafaure village in Masvingo, about 295 km from the capital Harare, is now a champion in farming.


Armed with early maturity and drought-resistant crop varieties like orange maize, cowpeas and lab-lab for livestock feed, Chinyengetere has a good harvest despite prolonged droughts across Zimbabwe.

“There was a drought last farming season, but I managed to get enough food to feed my family until next season,” she says. “I even sold leftovers to the local market.”

Brutal Drought Ravaging Crops

Zimbabwe, a landlocked country, relies on rain-fed agriculture. But over the years, rain patterns have been erratic, threatening the entire agriculture sector. The Southern African nation has been hit by one climate disaster after another. If there are no violent cyclones, severe floods or devastating droughts are ravaging the country.

From 2023 to 2024, a brutal El Niño drought—the strongest on record—plummeted the entire country.

Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia were also not spared by the same El Niño drought. There was crop failure in more than 80 percent of the country, according to the government.

Some farmers have been left with little or no food, and sources of livelihood in rural areas have been affected. Zimbabwe may be reaching a tipping point for rain-fed agriculture.

Farmers in Masvingo are growing orange maize, which has high vitamins amid climate change. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

Farmers in Masvingo are growing orange maize, which has high vitamins amid climate change. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

But woman farmers like Chinyengetere have their little secret as to how they are becoming resilient and adapting to the effects of climate change. She is part of Ukama Ustawi, an Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa by CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis. The farmers are subdivided into small groups of at most 15.

“I use zero tillage when I plant orange maize on my land spanning 40 m by 90 m. The idea is not to disturb the soil,” says Chinyengetere. “I was used to white maize. When I joined this project, I planted yellow maize for the first time.”

Zero tillage is an agricultural technique where farmers sow seeds directly into the soil without disturbing it. It is part of conservation agriculture that is becoming popular in Zimbabwe after it was upscaled across the country by the government. Chinyengetere prefers the technique because it has less labour than tillage farming.

“Even when I am alone and my children are at school, I can still sow the whole field,” she says.

In Masvingo, men are also providing solutions to climate change through the Ukama Ustawi initiative, though women are the majority.

Anton Mutasa from Zindere village in Masvingo says he has been able to feed his family because of climate-smart agriculture. “I grow orange maize, cowpeas, and lab-lab. To conserve water, prevent soil erosion and allow water to infiltrate, I spread some mulch around the plants,” says the 55-year-old father of six.

“This is vital, particularly during the dry season. I also rotate the crops to improve soil fertility. For instance, if I grew cowpeas on this part of land last season, this season I will make sure I grow oranges.”

Climate change affects women differently

Both men and women are affected by climate change. But for women, it hits harder because of the preexisting inequalities. They suffer because of the entrenched societal roles and limited access to resources.

Women are primarily responsible for cooking for the family and fetching water, particularly in rural areas. This places them on the frontlines of climate change because food and water become scarce during extreme weather events like drought.

Another farmer, Tendai Marange, from Machengere village in Masvingo, says less labour farming techniques allow women to continue their role as women. “I am expected to do house chores, but at the same time I want to go to the farm. This technique saves me time,” says the 47-year-old mother of three.

Farmers networking during a seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

Farmers networking during a seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

Chinyengetere says she is inspiring other women. “I feel empowered. I am occupied. The fact that I am bringing income and food for the family brings happiness to my marriage,” she says. “I even doubted myself. I thought, as a woman, I am a child-bearing machine.”

Once Chinyengetere and Marange’s projects are successful, they will share what they learned with others in Zimbabwe and beyond the borders.

“I am contributing solutions to climate change. Women are often at the receiving end of climate change. But my case is different; I am leading from the front,” says Chinyengetere.

Over 1 million farmers have been reached with different agriculture initiatives. At least 140,000 use the technologies that were promoted under Ukama Ustawi in Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia, according to Christian Thierfelder, a principal cropping systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), one of the research centres working with CGIAR.

About 60 percent of those were women. More than 45 percent were youth.

Thierfelder says as part of Ukama Ustawi in Zimbabwe, they work in 30 communities, where they have trials on drought-resistant crops.

He says Ukama Ustawi’s primary aim is to shift farmers’ behavior and perceptions, moving away from conventional maize-only farming systems towards diversified maize-based systems under conservation agriculture principles. “This involves promoting practices like crop rotation, intercropping, and sustainable soil management, all of which are essential for improving resilience to climate variability and boosting long-term productivity,” Thierfelder says.

Many farmers across the country lost their livestock due to lack of feed after grazing lands were depleted and outbreaks of diseases precipitated by the El Niño drought. Ukama Ustawi is working to change this by fostering livestock feeding systems with green manure cover crops and forage grasses.

“I lost my cattle in the previous droughts before joining Ukama Ustawi. I had no feed and diseases worsened the situation. I am now using lab-lab to make feed for my goats,” says Marange.

Networking

Ukama is a Shona word that translates to relationship. Marange says the groups provide networking opportunities. “We are a family. We share tips and ideas on conservation farming,” she says.

Since 2020, CIMMYT has been organizing seed and mechanization fairs where farmers access high-quality seeds and equipment they would otherwise struggle to access. “It is cheap to buy seeds at the fairs. It is usually cheap. We get discounts,” says Marange.

Thierfelder says Ukama Ustawi recognizes the importance of integrating a variety of crops, such as legumes, cowpeas, groundnuts, and small grains, into maize-dominated systems to achieve both ecological and economic sustainability.

“Seed fairs play a pivotal role in advancing this mission by providing farmers access to a diverse range of seeds, including drought-tolerant maize and other complementary crops that support diversification,” he says.

Thierfelder says plans are underway to upscale the Ukama Ustawi initiative to reach approximately more than 20 million farmers around the world with their technologies. “This is meant to be scaled up because those have reached a scaling readiness level and that is very high,” he says.

For Chinyengetere, the dream is to see more women leading the battle against climate change. “It is tough to convince young women to do farming under this extreme weather. Climate change is pushing them away into other dangerous activities like illegal mining,” she says.

Note: This story was produced with support from CGIAR and MESHA.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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UNCCD COP16 Raises Hopes for Ambitious Global Land Action

Combating Desertification and Drought, Conferences, Conservation, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Environment, Featured, Food and Agriculture, Gender, Global, Headlines, Humanitarian Emergencies, Migration & Refugees, Natural Resources, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations, Women & Climate Change, Women & Economy

Combating Desertification and Drought

Announcement of Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Drought Resilience Partnership Initiative. Photo credit: Anastasia Rodopoulou/IISD/ENB|

Announcement of Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Drought Resilience Partnership Initiative. Credit: Anastasia Rodopoulou/IISD/ENB|

RIYADH & HYDERABAD, Dec 6 2024 (IPS) – While many delegates at the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP16) hope that this could be the convention’s own Paris moment—referring to the historic Paris agreement inked by UNFCCC signatories—however, this hedges heavily on the UN parties’ seriousness to combat drought, desertification and land degradation.


UNCCD COP 16, themed “Our Land and Our Future,” is currently underway in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

One of the biggest expectations from the conference is a landmark decision on achieving a complete halt to land degradation by 2030. The other expectations are mobilizing enough resources to restore all degraded land and achieve total resilience against droughts.

Global Land Degradation at COP

Degradation affects 2 billion hectares of land globally. This is more than the total land area of Russia, the largest country on earth. This affects 3.2 billion people—twice the population of entire Africa. The degraded land area is also continuously expanding as each year an additional 100 million ha get degraded—mostly due to the impacts of climate change such as a drought and desertification. With a business-as-usual approach, by 2050, 6 billion ha will be degraded, warns UNCCD, which is urging the parties of the ongoing COP to take urgent action to halt this.

“Every second, somewhere in the world, we lose an equivalent of four football fields to land degradation. We must act now to restore our lands. They are the foundation of everything. For the first time, through our UNCCD reporting, we have evidence-based estimates of the alarming state of land degradation. COP16 is about our reliance on lands, but also our resilience,” said Ibrahim Thiaw, the Executive Secretary of UNCCD, at the opening ceremony of the COP.

“The scientific evidence is unambiguous: the way we manage our land today will directly determine our future on earth. Land restoration is the first and foremost foundation of our economy, security and humanity. We must restore our land now,” Thiaw said to an audience of party delegates, civil society groups, women’s rights organizations, business and finance experts, members of other UN agencies and youths.

Responding to the UN call, Saudi Arabia, the COP16 host, has promised to deliver strong action.

On Wednesday, December 4, the COP observed “Land Day.” Speaking at the event, Abdulrahman Abdulmohsen AlFadley, UNCCD COP16 President and Saudi Arabia Minister of Environment, Water, and Agriculture, said, “Through our Presidency of COP16, we will work to make this COP a launchpad to strengthen public and private partnerships and create a roadmap to rehabilitate 1.5 billion hectares of land by 2030.”

Finance Gap: Common Challenges of all UN COPs

On Dec 3, the second day of COP, the UNCCD released its financial needs assessment report, detailing the latest funding requirements to address land degradation, drought and desertification. The findings revealed a sizeable funding gap for international land restoration efforts. Based on UNCCD targets, the required annual investments for 2025–2030 are estimated at USD 355 billion. However, the projected investments for the same period amount to only USD 77 billion per year, leaving USD 278 billion that requires mobilization to meet the UNCCD objectives.

In the past, UNCCD’s finance mobilization efforts included the creation of a Land Degradation Neutrality Fund (LDN Fund), a financial mechanism to support the achievement of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN)—a target under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 15.3). But, similar to the climate change COPs and the biodiversity COPs, UNCCD’s LDN fund is underfunded and has only received USD 208 million.

However, on the second day of COP16, the Arab Coordination Group pledged USD 10 billion to combat land degradation, desertification and drought. The donation would go to the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership, an initiative launched by Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has also already announced a donation of USD 150 million to operationalize the initiative. The additional backing took place during the Ministerial Dialogue on Finance, part of the high-level segment at COP16 in Riyadh, aimed at unlocking international funding from the private and public sectors.

The Missing Private Sector Investment

The Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership will also focus on unlocking new financial mechanisms, such as credit, equity financing, insurance products, and grants, to enhance drought resilience.

With over USD 12 billion pledged for major land restoration and drought resilience initiatives in just the first two days, COP16 in Riyadh is already bringing more hopes than the biodiversity (UNCBD) and climate change (UNFCCC) COPs.

Dr. Osama Faqeeha, Deputy Minister for Environment, Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, and Advisor to the UNCCD COP16 Presidency, said: “I hope this is just the beginning, and over the coming days and weeks, we see further contributions from international private and public sector partners that further amplify the impact of vital drought resilience and land restoration initiatives.”

However, the convention has still not been able to unlock any significant private funding, which has been identified by many as a huge challenge in the path of achieving total land restoration. According to the COP Presidency, only 6 percent of the private investors and businesses have invested in land-related initiatives and the funding gap in the UNCCD is a ‘worrying blackhole.”

“If the international community is to deliver land restoration at the scale required, then the private sector simply must ramp up investment. As the latest UNCCD findings show, there remains a worrying blackhole in the funds needed to combat land degradation, desertification and drought,” said Faqeeha.

A Gender-Just Financing Solution: Can COP16 Deliver?

Following a series of events this year at the UN General Assembly, the CBD COP16 in Cali, Colombia and COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the ‘Rio Convention Synergies’ dialogue also took place on Land Day, highlighting developments made during the 2024 Rio Trio events. The event discussed the interconnected issues driving land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change and how to find common solutions.

Most participants highlighted the disproportionate impact of drought and land degradation on women and their urgent requirement for access to finance.

Women’s Leadership for Sustainable Land Management, Tarja Halonen, UNCCD Land Ambassador and Co-Chair of the UNCCD Gender Caucus, said, “Women and girls in rural communities bear the greatest burden of desertification, land degradation, and drought (DLDD), and their empowerment is crucial for addressing urgent land challenges.”

AlFadley noted that women’s empowerment enhances sustainable land management (SLM) and the preservation of ecosystems, as well as long-term resilience against DLDD.

Recognizing the challenges women face to mobilize resources for their own land restoration initiatives often due to lack of capacity and connections, Neema Lugangira, Member of Parliament, Tanzania, advised the COP16 Gender Caucus to connect with parliamentarians in the global climate finance chapter of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s parliamentary network.

“It will be good if the UNCCD can have a land restoration parliamentary group,” she said.

Speaking at a high-level interactive dialogue, Odontuya Saldan, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Mongolia, which will host COP17 in 2026, proposed establishing a global coalition of future rangelands and pastoralism solutions focused on gender equality and the role of youth, children, and women. She said Mongolia would make gender a priority at COP17, where the key theme will be rangelands and pastoralism.

What decisions COP16 makes to provide women land restorers and drought warriors with greater access to land finance is still up in the air.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Courage, not Compromise? A Rallying Cry that Failed a Deadlocked COP Meeting

Biodiversity, Civil Society, Climate Action, Climate Change, Combating Desertification and Drought, Environment, Global, Headlines, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Negotiations on a future global drought regime got underway at UNCCD COP16 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia December 2-13.

KATHMANDU, Nepal, Dec 4 2024 (IPS) – Courage and not compromise. That was the motto desperately launched by members of the civil society in the twilight of the negotiations of the Plastic Pollution Treaty in Busan, South Korea last week.


As we now know, the negotiations did not yield the results that would have helped Planet Earth set a groundbreaking target to reduce the amount of plastic being produced.

Meanwhile, the international community is onto another crucial meeting in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia to discuss global efforts against desertification. It is going to be another COP process, what is formally known as the 16th Session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification or UNCCD. (COP16, December 2-13).

Apparently, this time, the host, Saudi Arabia, is going to lead a tremendous effort to ensure a strong outcome. Over the last two and half months, Riyadh, rather than being a global leader to ensure the survivability of our planet, a champion of sustainability, has been a disruptor.

The Saudis were among those who have been undermining the recently concluded Climate COP 29 in Baku and, to a lesser extent, the COP 16 on Biodiversity in Cali, Colombia.

But a review of what unfolded over the last two and half months, would also bring an indictment for act of omission not only to the Petro states but also to all developed nations.

Indeed, the eleventh-hour rallying cry– “courage, not compromise”– should have been embraced as the North Star by all those nations who were ready to take bold steps in the three recently concluded COP processes.

In Busan, as explained by the Center for International Environmental Law, CIEL, ” negotiators had several procedural options available, including voting or making a treaty among the willing”. Yet the most progressive nations, around 100 countries, including the EU and 38 African nations and South American countries, did not dare to go beyond the traditional approach of seeking a consensus at any cost.

Ironically what happened at COP 16 and COP 29 was equally a travesty of justice as developed nations did not budge from their positions. At the end, the final deals on biodiversity and climate financing, were in both cases extremely disappointing especially in relation to the former.

Indeed. in Cali, there was no agreement at all in finding the resources needed to implement the ambitious Kunming- Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

According to BloombergNEF (BNEF), in its Biodiversity Finance Factbook, ” the gap between current biodiversity finance and future needs have widened to $ 942 billion”.

The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), the financial vehicle to implement the Framework, is still very far from becoming a true game changer.

The millions of dollars that a small group of European nations have pledged during the negotiations in Cali, are still a miniscule contribution in relation to what was agreed two years ago in Montreal where the second leg of the COP 15 was held.

There, the final outcome underpinning the Framework, required the mobilisation of financial resources for biodiversity of at least US$200 billion per year by 2030 from public and private sources and identifying and eliminating at least US$500 billion of annual subsidies harmful to biodiversity.

What unfolded in Baku at the climate COP was also, in terms of financing, embarrassing for developed nations. The hardly negotiated agreement of tripling the US$ 100 billion per year by 2035 with a commitment to reach up to US$ 1.3 trillion by the same year through different sources of money, including difficult to negotiate levies, is far from what is required.

On this front, the embarrassment was not only on the traditional developed nations but also on countries like China and the Gulf Nations who stubbornly rejected their responsibility to play their part in climate financing.

At least, as part of a last minute compromise, the developed nations (G7 and few others like Australia) will now co-lead the responsibility of finding the resources. China and others wealthy nations that, according to an outdated UN classification are still officially considered as “developing”, will contribute but only on voluntary basis.

As we see, the final outcomes of these three COPs were far from being courageous. Compromising, epitomized by concepts like ” constructive ambiguity”, agreeing on something that can be interpreted differently by the nations at the negotiating tables, instead dominated.

At this point, considering the frustrations of these mega gatherings, what could be done? Is the existing model of the COP with its complexities and endless delays and bickering, still viable?

The influential Club of Rome, on the last days of COP 29, had released a strongly worded press release asking for a major reform of the ways negotiations were carried out. “The COP process must be strengthened with mechanisms to hold countries accountable”. The document went even further with calls to implement robust tracking of climate financing.

Also, with each COP, a series of new initiatives are always launched, often just for the sake of visibility and prestige.

The risk is having a multitude of exercises and mechanisms that drains resources that, are at the end, are neither productive nor meaningful but rather duplicative and ultimately, a waste of money.

We should be even more radical, I would say. For example, the international community should introduce the same peer to peer review process in place in the Human Rights Council that, frankly speaking, is hardly a revolutionary tool.

And yet, despite the fact that nations with a solid track record in human rights abuses remain unscathed in the Council, such a change would represent some forms of accountability in the areas of biodiversity and climate.

This could be envisioned as a reform that should accompany the implementation of the upcoming 3rd wave of Nationally Determined Contributions due by 2025. Getting rid of the consensus model is also something that should truly be considered.

Why not holding votes that would break the vetoes of even one single nation? Why being so attached to unanimity when we do know that it is not working at all?

As show in Busan, it is the traditionally developed nations that lack courage and farsightedness in pursuing a procedure that might backfire against them. This is, instead, a cause that at least the EU, Canada and Australia should embrace. Yet we are still very far from reaching this level of audacity.

Another fanciful thinking relates to tie nations’ actions to the possibility of hosting prestigious sports tournament. Why not forcing international sport bodies like FIFA to reward the hosting rights for its mega events only to nations which are climate and biodiversity leaders in practice rather than through empty but lofty declarations?

Unfortunately, there will never be consensus within the football federations that run FIFA governing body or say, within the International Olympic Committee. A more promising area, though also not easy to put into practice, would be to find ways in which non state actors would have a real say in the negotiations.

Both the COP 16 and the COP 29 reached some breakthroughs in relation to giving more voice, for example, to indigenous people. In Cali, it was decided to establish a new body that will more power to indigenous people.

It is what is formally known, in reference to the provision related to the rights of indigenous people of the International Convention on Biodiversity, as the Permanent Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j).

The details of this new body will be object of intense negotiations but at least a pathway has been created to better channel the demands of a key constituency who, so far, has struggled to gain its due recognition.

Also at COP 29 saw some wins for indigenous people with the adaption of the Baku Workplan and the renewal of the mandate of the Facilitative Working Group (FWG) of local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platforms.

Surely there can be some creative solutions to strengthen what was supposed to be the platform to incorporate and engage non state actors, the Marrakesh Partnership for Global Action.

The members of civil society could come up with new ideas on how to formally have a role in the negotiations. While it is impossible to have non state actors at the par of member states party to the conventions around which the COPs are held, surely the latter should be in a better place and have some forms of decision power.

Lastly one of the best ways to simplify these complex and independent from each other negotiations, would be to work towards a unifying framework in relation to the implementation of the biodiversity and climate conventions.

On this, the Colombian Presidency of the COP 16 broke some important grounds with Susana Muhammad, the Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia who chaired the proceedings in Cali, pushing for bridging the gap between biodiversity and climate negotiations.

None of the propositions listed here are going to be easy to implement. What we need is simple to understand but also extremely hard to reach.

Only more pressure from the below, from the global civil society can push governments to make the right choice: setting aside, at least for once, the word compromise and instead chose another one that instead can make the difference while instilling hope.

This word is called courage.

Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centered policy-making and a stronger and better United Nations

IPS UN Bureau

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Arab Region Leaders, Experts Gather to Find Solutions to Water Scarcity, Sustainable Development

Active Citizens, Asia-Pacific, Civil Society, Combating Desertification and Drought, Conferences, Conservation, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations, Water & Sanitation

Population

Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development met in Bahrain to to address water scarcity. Credit: APDA

Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development met in Bahrain to to address water scarcity. Credit: APDA

MANAMA & NAIROBI, Nov 7 2024 (IPS) – The Arab region is among the most water-scarce areas globally, as nearly 392 million people live in countries facing water scarcity or absolute water scarcity. So dire is the situation that, of the 22 Arab countries, 19 fall below the annual threshold for water scarcity in renewable resources, defined as 1,000 cubic meters per person.


Worst still, 13 countries fall below the absolute water scarcity threshold of 500 cubic meters per person per year. Water scarcity in the Arab region poses a serious challenge, threatening the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals and the realization of the fundamental human right to access water and sanitation. 

It is within this context that the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development, in collaboration with the Asian Population and Development Association in Japan and with support from the United Nations Population Fund, held a meeting on October 26, 2024, in the Kingdom of Bahrain to address water scarcity as a development concern and promote coordinated action across different sectors.

Dr. Mohamed Al-Samadi, Secretary-General of the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development, stressed the need for coordinated governance and measures to close the gap between water security and the Sustainable Development Goals. The gathering that included Bahraini parliamentarians from committees focused on population and development, along with representatives from civil society organizations, experts, academics, and government officials.

The gathering reiterated that “researchers in the field of water science have set the water poverty line at 500 cubic meters per person annually, while 1,000 cubic meters of freshwater per person is considered the threshold for achieving water security. Reports also link this to food security, showing that producing an individual’s annual food supply requires over 2,000 cubic meters of water.

Lawmakers and experts stressed the need for coordinated governance and measures to close the gap between water security and the Sustainable Development Goals. Credit: APDA

Lawmakers and experts stressed the need for coordinated governance and measures to close the gap between water security and the Sustainable Development Goals. Credit: APDA

Stressing that the “water security in the Arab world is now critically at stake as annual usable water resources fall below 40 billion cubic meters. A large portion of these resources is lost to evaporation and infiltration into the soil, and additional amounts are necessary to sustain river flows to their endpoints. Any country that uses 40 percent or more of its total annual water resources is considered to be facing severe water scarcity according to the Water Scarcity Index, also known as the Water Sustainability Index.”

Dr. Muneer Ibrahim, a Member of Parliament and member of the Committee on Water, Environment, and Public Utilities, spoke about water security and the SDGs, emphasizing that water is the fundamental pillar for achieving these global goals across their economic, social, and environmental dimensions, as water security is an essential requirement for their realization.

Further stressing that the relationship between water and sustainable development is reciprocal, and this interconnectedness poses significant challenges in the Arab region, especially given the current water situation. Necessitating the development and implementation of effective policies and solutions to ensure sustainable water resources for various uses.

Hassan Ibrahim, a Member of Parliament and the rapporteur for the Water Committee, spoke about innovation for sustainable water management, highlighting that resolving the water crisis is essential for a livable future on our planet. Noting that whether water is overly abundant, severely scarce, or highly polluted, it presents a triple threat exacerbated by climate change, depriving billions of people of access to clean, safe water and sanitation services.

He said that this then “threatens economies, encourages migration, and may fuel conflict. We need global action to establish water security to enable inclusive and resilient green growth while addressing the interconnected relationship between water, climate, and conflict. Despite the progress made, we are falling behind in achieving the SDGs related to water, which directly affect inclusive development.”

Current trends indicate that by 2030, 1.6 billion people will lack access to safe drinking water, 2.8 billion will be deprived of safe sanitation services, and 1.9 billion will be without basic hygiene facilities. Globally, the investment needs for the water sector exceed USD 1.37 trillion and must increase sixfold from current levels to meet the sixth SDG on ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030.

“Water accounts for less than 2 percent of public spending, and private investment levels in this sector are also low in low- and middle-income countries. Bahrain has adopted strategies and initiatives to improve the management of water resources, support the strategic water stock, and increase the area and sustainability of rainwater harvesting efficiency to enhance natural groundwater resources,” Ibrahim said.

Bahrain is implementing advanced technical solutions to utilize treated wastewater for irrigation needs, which also helps reduce environmental pollution, address the impacts of climate change, and minimize the depletion of natural water resources. Bahrain, through the Water Security Strategy 2030 launched by the Ministry of Energy and Environment, aims to ensure the sustainability and continuity of access to water under both normal conditions and extreme emergencies.

The key targets of the strategy include reducing total water resource demand by 21 percent, increasing the water productivity index to USD 110 per cubic meter, lowering the water scarcity index by three degrees, and raising the percentage of treated water reuse to 95 percent. Dr. Walid Zubari, a water resources expert and president of the Arab Water Association, presented on the vital role of civil society institutions in raising water awareness to achieve water sustainability and address the challenges facing the water sector in Bahrain.

Regarding civil society institutions, Dr. Zubari said, “It is important for them to play a role in water awareness. Once community members understand the implications of their behavior in dealing with water and there is a religious and moral incentive, it is likely that they will voluntarily rationalize their water usage. If this happens, the community and the executors will be in the same boat, enabling them to achieve water sustainability.”

Dr. Karim Rashid, Member of Parliament, delivered a comprehensive presentation on the importance of water and its essential role in supporting sustainable development, as water impacts all aspects of development and is closely linked to nearly every SDG, driving economic growth, supporting healthy ecosystems, and being essential for life itself.

Still, nearly two billion people worldwide lack access to safely managed drinking water services, while around 3.6 billion suffer from inadequate sanitation services. To enable effective climate change adaptation, he said activities should reflect the importance of water management in reducing vulnerability to risks and building resilience against climate change.

Further emphasizing the necessity of political commitment and leadership, technological innovations, and the advancement of service delivery models and financing to support governments in fulfilling their commitment to achieve Target 6.2 of the SDGs—”to ensure access for all to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene services by 2030.”

The expert and water sector advisor at the Ministry of Water in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Eng. Mohammed Sawar, called for adopting a model transformation in the management of water resources in the GCC countries, shifting from the current focus on “supply sustainability” to “consumption sustainability.” Emphasizing economic efficiency in water usage and financial sustainability of water services.

Note: This meeting was supported by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Japan Trust Fund (JTF).

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Explainer: COP16—What’s It About and What Does It Need to Achieve?

Biodiversity, Combating Desertification and Drought, Conferences, Conservation, COP16, COP29, Editors’ Choice, Environment, Featured, Global, Headlines, Humanitarian Emergencies, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Biodiversity

David Cooper, Deputy Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad and CBD Executive Secretary Astrid Schomaker at a recent press conference in which they looked ahead to COP16. Credit: CBD

David Cooper, Deputy Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad and CBD Executive Secretary Astrid Schomaker at a recent press conference in which they looked ahead to COP16. Credit: CBD

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 27 2024 (IPS) – ‘Peace with Nature’ is the theme for the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which will take place in Cali, Colombia, between October 21 and November 1, 2024.


But what does ‘Peace with Nature’ mean?

Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Susana Muhamad

For COP16 chair and Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Susana Muhamad, the theme of Peace with Nature means understanding that climate change and restoring nature are both sides of the same coin.

“That’s the main motivation why Colombia decided to host this conference, we see there is a double movement that humanity has to make,” Muhamad told a press briefing on August 22, 2024.

Her vision clearly places biodiversity as politically relevant as the climate change agenda.

While it is crucial to decarbonize and have a just energy transition, it’s equally important to “restore nature” so that it can, in the end, “stabilize the climate.”

She outlines three political successes: strong engagement from all sectors, positioning biodiversity as a parallel movement to decarbonization, and approving the Digital Sequencing Information Fund.

“At the same time as we are not decarbonizing, the climate will continue changing, and nature will not have the time to adapt,” Muhamad said. “And if nature collapses, communities and people will also collapse, and society will collapse.”

COP16’s role as the first of three COPs (organized respectively by the UNCBD, UNFCCC and UNCCD) this year is to bring “political and economic awareness to biodiversity and so bring humanity back to safe limits during the 21st century.”

CBD Executive Secretary Astrid Schomaker

For CBD’s Executive Secretary Astrid Schomaker, the Columbian presidency’s theme of Peace with Nature is a call to action.

She describes the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGVF) as the blueprint for making peace with nature, with four goals: protecting and restoring nature, sharing benefits, investing in nature, and collaborating with nature.

Schomaker asserts that COP16 is essential for resolving the outstanding issues from COP 15.

“This is about access and benefit sharing of digital sequence information from genetic resources. Now that’s a very technical subject, but the very, very important one also in terms of the mobilization of resources, but also in terms of the understanding of how we interact with nature, that when we take from nature, we benefit from nature, we give back to nature.”

Schomaker also referred to the need to finance biodiversity with international support, adding to Canada’s donation of USD 200 million. The fund currently stands at USD 300 million.

Finally, COP16 will include initiatives that will bring indigenous peoples and local communities to the table and elevate their voices so that the traditional knowledge they can bring can deepen the debate.

Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault

Handing over the baton to the COP16 presidency, Guilbeault looked back at COP15, which has been termed biodiversity’s “Paris moment,” referring to the Paris Climate Treaty of 2015, which aims to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

Despite the achievements and hard work, biodiversity issues are still challenging, and are not yet at “Peace with Nature.”

“Species are still going extinct. We still use natural resources unsustainably. And we’ve still not collectively realized that, in the fight against climate change, our biggest ally is nature.”

What are the challenges?

Finance

Muhamad recognized that financing is crucial for “sustained” and secure resources for the future. She called on Parties to come forward and make firm commitments to finance biodiversity, although they have until 2025 to do so in terms of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

The COP16 chairperson also hoped that this forum would be a “pioneer” for new financing mechanisms that go beyond relying on countries financing the framework and to “open new doors of possibilities for funding mechanisms that are more sustainable and that are at the scale of the challenge that we are facing.”

Business

Muhamad also referred to the proactive role of business with regard to their responsibilities towards keeping a safe environment and its contribution to biodiversity.

The framework mandates government remove, over time, subsidies to sectors of the economy that may impact biodiversity. This could lead to backlash, so human rights and fairness are crucial; however, there are also many opportunities.

“We hope at COP16 to bring a lot of inspiration from those business models that are already incorporated and taking nature as a design into consideration, and that are being the vanguard of new prospects.”

It is also crucial to make this a partnership between government and business to move forward and there will be opportunities in both the green and blue zones at COP16 to take the conversation forward.

Digital sequencing

Muhamad anticipates that the approval of a digital sequencing fund and the mechanism for implementation will be key achievements of the negotiations.

Schomaker added that it had already been “decided that there will be a new global mechanism for sharing the benefits of digital sequencing information on genetic resources, and that global mechanism includes a fund.” What is still under discussion is what form the fund will take.

“Will it be a new fund, a completely new fund, which is one of the options on the table, or will it be one of the existing funds that we have?”

David Cooper, CBD’s Deputy Executive Secretary , agreed that the discussion includes whether to use existing funds like the Global Biodiversity Fund, which is managed by the Global Environment Facility or create a new fund.

IPS UN Bureau Report