World falls short of drought deal at Saudi-hosted talks

RIYADH: Negotiators failed to produce an agreement on how to respond to drought at Saudi-hosted UN talks, participants said on Saturday, falling short of a hoped-for binding protocol addressing the scourge.

The 12-day meeting of parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), known as COP16, concluded early on Saturday morning, a day later than scheduled as parties tried to hammer out a deal.

Prior to the talks, UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw said the world expected negotiators “to adopt a bold decision that can help turn the tide on the most pervasive and the most disruptive environmental disaster: drought”. But addressing the plenary session before dawn, Thiaw acknowledged that “parties need more time to agree on the best way forward”.

A press release on Saturday said the parties — 196 countries and the European Union — had “made significant progress in laying the groundwork for a future global drought regime, which they intend to complete at COP17 in Mongolia in 2026”.

The Riyadh talks came after the partial failure of biodiversity talks in Colombia, the failure to reach a UN deal on plastics pollution in South Korea, and a climate finance deal that disappointed developing nations at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Droughts “fuelled by human destruction of the environment” cost the world more than $300 billion each year, the UN said in a report published on December 3, the second day of the talks in Riyadh.

Droughts are projected to affect 75 percent of the world’s population by 2050, it said.

A delegate at COP16 from a country in Africa, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, told AFP that African nations had hoped the talks would produce a binding protocol on drought.

That would ensure “every government will be held responsible” for devising stronger preparation and response plans, the delegate said.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen Africa so united, with a strong united front, with respect to the drought protocol.”

Two other COP16 participants, also requesting anonymity, told AFP that developed countries did not want a binding protocol and instead were pushing for a “framework”, which African countries deemed inadequate.