The year 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. This is why the conference planned for June 5 on the sidelines of the celebration of Environment Day in Geneva will be devoted to land restoration, desertification and resilience to drought. The slogan of this 2024 edition is “Our land. Our future. We are #GenationRestoration.” At this celebration in Geneva, key speaking experts will highlight how Geneva’s multilateral international diplomatic system is committed to combating desertification, land degradation and drought.
Today, the future of our lands is at stake. According to the United Nations Convention to combat desertification, up to 40% of the planet’s land is degraded, directly affecting half of the world’s population and threatening approximately Half of the world’s GDP (US$44 trillion). The number and duration of droughts have increased by 29% since 2000 – without urgent action, droughts can affect more than three -quarters of the world’s population by 2050. Land restoration is a key pillar of the United Nations decade On the restoration of the ecosystem (2021-2030), a rallying call for the protection and rebirth of ecosystems around the world, which is essential to achieve the objectives of sustainable development.
This year, the sixteenth session of the Conference of Parties (COP16) of the UNCCD will also take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from December 2 to 13, 2024. At UNCCD COP16, the world will meet to aim towards scaling up ambition and investment to restore 1.5 billion hectares of degraded land by 2030, to have a collective agreement on how to tackle the worsening of droughts, to feed the growing populations without Convert more land or exhaust our soils, and to provide secure land rights for all regions of all the world regions.
As a global hub for environmental governance, Geneva plays an important role in the global response to desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD). With leading organizations on environmental issues, nature conservation, water, health, human rights and many relevant areas of work, Geneva organizes strong expertise to contribute to global processes tackling DLDD. From the fight against impacts and the prevention of risks posed by this crisis on people and the planet to the development of policies aimed at arresting the DLDD, the stakeholders of Geneva also play a role in the creation of links to other environmental crises.
Primary diplomats and international experts who speak during this event will highlight the way in which the international multilateral diplomacy system in Geneva, with its many intergovernmental organizations, its permanent government missions, NGOs, platforms, academic institutions, and other stakeholders, is engaged in the upcoming UNCCD COP16 and how it is actively tackling desertification, land degradation, and drought.
Each year, millions of people are moved due to disasters. In 2023, disasters led to 26.4 million new internal trips (2024 global report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center). According to the World Bank, without early and concerted action in terms of climate and development, more than 216 million people may become internal climatic migrants by 2050. It is urgent to act concretely.