COP 16 desertification summit to target private sector's overuse of land

The global business community is facing scrutiny for the increasing pressure it puts on the world’s land and forests, and it is on the United Nations’ radar in the lead-up to a U.N. conference on land use and drought. This year’s summit of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, or UNCCD, aims to hold the private sector accountable for over-exploiting natural resources. The conference, called COP 16, will be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in December. COP 16 will take place at a critical time for the planet, amid increasing talk of things like debt-for-nature swaps and nature credits. Fifty percent of private sector income worldwide comes from land-based extraction, according to Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Minister of Environment Osama Ibrahim Faqeeha, who is also a senior member of the COP 16 presidency team. This resource extraction has resulted in land degradation, biodiversity loss, and water stress — which can lead to a slow-motion natural disaster known as desertification, leaving land unable to support crops or even grass for livestock. This in turn harms food production and agrifood systems. Up to 40% of the world’s land is degraded, according to UNCCD data, with major consequences for humanity’s ability to feed itself. Some 99% of all the world’s food calories are produced on land, Faqeeha said. Yet the private sector contributes less than 5% of the annual funding needed for nature-based solutions to battle the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity and nature loss, and pollution and waste, he added. “The business community benefits a lot from land in direct investments, from agriculture to the fashion industry to mining, all of which come from land. But still their contribution to the collective funding for nature is very minimal,” Faqeeha said. As a senior member of the COP 16 presidency team, Faqeeha said he expects the business community to participate by coming up with ideas on how to support the four proposals that will be tabled at the summit. The four proposals are: a global initiative on drought resilience; land stewardship to accelerate land restoration; building on the COP 28 actions to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation; and establishing a global early warning system on sand and dust storms. Overusing natural resources Global resource use, including extraction from agriculture and forestry, has increased more than three times over the last 50 years and continues to grow by an average of more than 2.3% per year, according to a U.N. report released during the U.N. Environment Assembly conference earlier this year. While agriculture and forestry account for 90% of total land use-related biodiversity loss and water stress, the report said, “high income countries use six times more materials per capita and are responsible for ten times more climate impacts per capita than low-income countries.” Resource extraction has led to land degradation, affecting 3.2 billion people in the world and 50% of the planet’s GDP, UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw told Devex. The planet is losing 100 million hectares per year to land degradation, or two to three hectares per second, Thiaw said, adding that at this rate, an area the size of Latin America could be lost by 2050. One way the business community contributes to this degradation is through direct extraction of resources, he said. But they also profit from processing and trading resources extracted by other investors. “By and large, land degradation is caused by the industry, the private sector, and by our activities as human beings. The private sector contributes to our overall well-being. They should make sure their production is sustainable but also for the sake of the planet,” he said. Food security is on the action agenda for COP 16. But more important will be the expectation for the private sector to take action from the policy decisions and resolutions that will be adopted in Riyadh, he said. Nature-based solutions Businesses can contribute to halting biodiversity loss by engaging in regenerative agriculture, which “fosters soil health and biodiversity in lands used for raising crops, livestock and forestry products,” according to a paper released at a U.N. Biodiversity Conference last year. But nature-based solutions such as carbon credits are an area that the private sector is investing in to raise funds to help halt biodiversity loss and finance nature conservation, said María Mendiluce, the chief executive officer of the We Mean Business Coalition, or WMBC. For instance, the Yaeda-Eyasi carbon project in northern Tanzania is an investment by the local business community to battle biodiversity loss — thereby avoiding deforestation while safeguarding the land rights of the indigenous Hadza people, she said. “If every company invested in high quality nature-based solutions to address just 10 percent of their unabated emissions, the private sector would mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars to halt biodiversity loss and infuse the much-needed capital into nature conservation efforts,” said Mendiluce. According to Fred Kihara, the director of Africa water funds at The Nature Conservancy, the business community is an active partner and collaborator in conserving and enhancing nature, mostly through financial support. At the conservancy, there is a partnership with the private sector that protects vital land and water sites in Africa through a water fund, while transforming the use and management of natural resources, he said. “One of the ways we have applied this is through the water fund model that harnesses resources from large industries and businesses to subsidise conservation activities within communities which host the water sources,” said Kihara. Not everyone is convinced. Climate change researcher Mwaniki Wahome said the profit-minded and capitalistic nature of businesses is worsening the state of natural resources and food systems instead of restoring them. “Look at their source of energy, some use wood fuel and have no programs for replanting trees. There is no consciousness about conservation or rehabilitation. Businesses are introducing the danger of landslides and jeopardizing the future of water storage. If unchecked, the wanton destruction of water aquifers will result in reduced availability of water, particularly due to frequent dry spells,” said Wahome, who is also the editor of Cooperative Magazine in Kenya. Delivering a punch to the business community could prove to be a tough call, given that UNCCD is struggling with internal challenges such as inadequate funding and lack of cooperation among multilateral environment agencies. According to Thiaw, funding to fix the world’s degraded lands should be measured in trillions of dollars — which is only a fraction of what the UN agency gets from public funds. In Faqeeha’s opinion, this is not enough and proportional to the scale of the challenge facing the planet, given that there has been a lack of cooperation between multi-agency organizations to tackle the issue of land degradation and drought. UNCCD is “doing their best but more support is needed,” said Faqeeha. Update, May 2, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect the correct title for Osama Ibrahim Faqeeha.