Right up to the end, African delegates battled with the West to secure the adoption of a binding international drought resilience protocol. To no avail. While Africa is losing "over 100 football pitches of healthy land" every minute, the 16th biennial conference (COP16) of the members of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which was held for two weeks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, closed its doors a day late, on the morning of Saturday, December 14, without reaching a conclusion on this subject. During the last few days, the major donors said they found some African countries to be very interested in the money, but too imprecise in expressing their real needs.
In the absence of a protocol, Saudi Arabia, the host country, announced last week the creation of an International Drought Resilience Observatory (IDRO) powered by artificial intelligence, to better determine the scale of projects and ensure their impact on the ground. It also launched the Riyadh Global Partnership, a new body aimed at mobilizing public and private funding to support "80 of the countries most affected by drought." This new organization will be backed by an initial commitment of $2.15 billion. In all, more than $12 billion in commitments were made at COP16. In theory, however, "$1 billion daily to combat desertification, land degradation and drought between 2025 and 2030" would have to be invested to properly combat desertification and restore degraded land, according to the UNCCD. This represents $2.6 trillion, the exact equivalent of the environmentally damaging subsidies granted worldwide every year, the abolition of which is being called for by a large number of NGOs.
You have 73.07% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.