Bonn,
Germany, 8 August 2019. We have known
for over 25 years that poor land use and
management are major drivers of climate change,
but have never mustered the political will to
act. With the release of the IPCC special report
on climate change and land, which makes the
consequences of inaction crystal clear, we have
no excuse for further delay.
We cannot
head off the worst ravages of climate change
without action on land degradation. The
knowledge and technologies to manage our lands
sustainably already exist. All we need is the
will to use them to draw down carbon from the
atmosphere, protect vital ecosystems and meet
the challenge of feeding a growing global
population. We must harness the enormous
positive potential of our lands and make them
part of the climate solution.
With the
help of our scientists, I will ensure the issues
in this report that are within the scope of the
Convention are presented to ministers for strong
and decisive action when they meet at the
world’s largest intergovernmental forum where
decisions on land use and management are made,
the
14th
session of the Conference of the Parties to the
UNCCD, taking place in New Delhi, India, in
three weeks’ time.
The IPCC report is one
of four major assessments released over the last
two years that show the wide-ranging impacts of
land degradation. It is not just the climate
that suffers when land quality declines. Land
degradation jeopardizes our ability to feed the
word, threatens the survival of over a million
species, destroys ecosystems and drives
resource-related conflicts that demand costly
international interventions.
These problems
are no longer local problems. The report
underlines that the increasingly global flows of
consumption and production means that what we
eat in one country can impact land in another.
In the wake of land degradation and drought,
communities are breaking down due to the swift
and devastating loss of life and
livelihoods.
Faced with these
life-changing consequences, the UNCCD has
developed a robust policy framework that can
enable countries to avoid further land
degradation and recover land that has become
virtually unusable.
Change is happening, but
not fast enough. In the last four years,
122
of the 169 countries affected by
desertification, land degradation or drought
have embarked on setting national targets to
halt future degradation and rehabilitate
degrading land to ensure the amount of healthy
and productive land available in 2015 does not
decline by 2030 and beyond.
Last year,
these countries submitted baseline date to
verify this achievement. And in just three
years, close to
70
countries have set up national drought
management plans to reduce community and
ecosystem vulnerability to droughts, which the
IPCC says will become stronger, more frequent
and more widespread.
This shows that
commitment to reversing land degradation is
growing, even though much work remains. More
than two billion hectares of land are degraded.
Initiatives to restore land on a national or
landscape level are not only vital in reversing
the process. They are critical for helping the
global community mitigate and adapt to climate
change in the short term, using soil and
vegetations through methods that do not harm the
Earth.
When the ministers meet in
September, I expect the IPCC report to have a
strong influence not only on the policy
decisions they will debate, but the will to take
them home for appropriate action. Science can
help politicians develop informed policies that
will support ordinary people to prepare, act and
create more positive pathways to the
future.
--- ends ---
Ibrahim Thiaw, UN
Under Secretary General and Executive Secretary
to the UN Convention to Combat
Desertification.Notes to
EditorsMedia Contacts:
yh...@unccd.int
and
wwisch...@unccd.int. For the language versions please
click hereBackground information on the
status of land degradation and restoration
globally, including materials and resources for
use are provided below.Download Summary
of the four assessments:
Global
Land Outlook (2017),
IPBES
Assessment on Land Degradation and
Restoration (2018),
World
Atlas of Desertification (2018),
IPBES
Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
ServicesDownload
The Land in numbers 2019.
Risks and
opportunities. 
