This aerial photo taken on Jan. 17, 2023 shows the cracked lake bottom of Selkapani Dam Lake in Ankara, Türkiye. (Photo by Mustafa Kaya/Xinhua)
The UNCCD, at COP28, issued a stark warning on the global impact of human-induced droughts, calling for urgent global attention to break the cycle of neglect and address the planetary-scale drought-related crisis.
BERLIN, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has warned the massive impacts of human-induced droughts on a planetary scale.
At the ongoing 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, UNCCD launched a "Global Drought Snapshot" report in collaboration with the International Drought Resilience Alliance (IDRA).
This photo taken on Nov. 30, 2023 shows the opening ceremony of the 28th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP28, in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. (Xinhua/Wang Dongzhen)
The report points to an unprecedented emergency on a planetary scale, where the massive impacts of human-induced droughts are only starting to unfold.
According to the report, Europe experienced its hottest summer on record in 2022, with drought affecting 630,000 square kilometers, about the size of Italy and Poland combined, and almost four times the average area affected between 2000 and 2022. The last time Europe experienced such a severe drought was 500 years ago.
According to the report, between 15 percent and 20 percent of China's population will face more frequent moderate to severe droughts within this century. Africa's drought-related economic losses over the past 50 years have amounted to 70 billion U.S. dollars. In the Central American Dry Corridor (a strip of land across El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua), 1.2 million people need food assistance after five years of drought, heat waves and unpredictable rainfall.
Photo taken on Aug. 17, 2023 shows a dried-up green space next to a major street in Dallas, Texas, the United States. The highest temperature in Dallas area reached 43 degrees Celsius on Thursday. (Photo by Xin Jin/Xinhua)
"Unlike other disasters that attract media attention, droughts happen silently, often going unnoticed and failing to provoke an immediate public and political response. This silent devastation perpetuates a cycle of neglect, leaving affected populations to bear the burden in isolation," Ibrahim Thiaw, UNCCD's executive secretary, said.
UNCCD is one of three conventions that originated at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The other two address climate change (UNFCCC) and biodiversity (UNCBD). ■
