The world is quietly losing the land it needs to feed itself.analysis

According to a recent United Nations report, the greatest threats to our existence today are posed by human activity, not by the unilateral actions of nature.

Many people are familiar with the human contribution to climate change and perhaps the loss of biodiversity. But there is a third environmental influence of his that rarely receives attention. That is desertification, also known as land degradation.

The world is rapidly losing available land for reasons of its own making, from intensive agriculture and livestock overgrazing to real estate development and climate change. The crisis is further fueling food and water insecurity and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental scientists are not ignoring this problem. In fact, the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 led to the creation of his three UN conventions: climate change, biodiversity and desertification.

Large-scale COP summits are held every year, such as COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and now frequently make front-page headlines.

However, although the Convention on Biological Diversity and Desertification also holds a COP summit, it only happens once every two years and rarely attracts as much attention. Ibrahim Thiau, executive director of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, said this was a missed opportunity, hinting that it could become a branding issue as people think it is only a desert problem.

“There is a misconception about the word desertification. That’s why we also use the word ‘land degradation’,” Thiau said.

Ironically, one of the biggest challenges in the fight against land degradation is universal: we need to eat. Approximately 40% of the earth’s land, or more than 12 billion acres, is used for agriculture. One third of it is used for crop cultivation, and the rest for livestock grazing.

Unfortunately, the world does not have a good track record of sustainable agricultural practices. Over the past 500 years, human activities (mainly agriculture) have degraded nearly 5 billion acres of land.

This contributes to around 500 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent released through soil disturbance, which is about a quarter of all greenhouse gases contributing to further warming today. . Further land degradation could add an additional 120 billion tonnes of carbon equivalent to the atmosphere by 2050, exacerbating climate change.

Mr Thiau said that drawing attention to land restoration projects could turn this scenario on its head. “There is no solution to land degradation that does not also benefit the other problems we face,” he said.

In addition to reducing emissions, a World Economic Forum report estimates that nearly 400 million new jobs could be created by investing around $2.7 trillion annually in ecosystem restoration, regenerative agriculture, and circular business models. It is estimated that there is a potential for economic value to increase by more than $10 trillion annually.

Thiau said governments around the world spend more than $600 billion in direct agricultural subsidies, which can be redirected to efforts to help restore land and increase yields. “There is nothing more absurd than spending public money to destroy your own natural capital,” he says. “But we have election after election.”

One reason the issue of land degradation has been largely ignored may be because humans have lost their connection to the land, according to Osama Ibrahim Fakih, chairman of COP16 on desertification, which will be held in Saudi Arabia this year. He says he can’t.

“Currently, the majority of the population lives in cities. We live in concrete forests,” Fakiha said. “Very few of us have a direct link between us and food production.”

Another explanation may have to do with how rich countries have handled this issue. Developed countries “for a long time thought it was an African problem,” Thiau said. “It wasn’t considered a global problem.” Today, land degradation and drought affect nearly every country in the world.

Even the world’s largest economy cannot ignore land degradation. “When you think about soil, the United States Secretary of State is probably not the first person that comes to mind,” Antony Blinken said at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “But the truth is that soil is literally at the root of many of the pressing national security challenges we face.”

Blinken said global food demand is expected to increase by 50% by 2050, even though climate change could reduce global yields by 30%. “Parents who can’t put food on the table for their kids move to pick up their families,” he said. But it is contributing to unprecedented migration flows. ”

Akshat Rati writes the Zero newsletter, which examines the world’s race to reduce global warming emissions. His book, Climate Capitalism, will be published in the US and Canada on March 12th.

— With assistance from Olivia Rudgard.