Humanity is “at a crossroads” when it comes to managing drought and accelerating mitigation must be done “urgently, using every tool we can,” says a new report from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Droughts have increased 29% in the space of a single generation, according to a paper the United Nations released on Wednesday, which observed that the problem is rapidly accelerating. Released to coincide with the 15th annual Conference of Parties held by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, the “Drought in Numbers 2022” report reveals that droughts comprise just 15% of natural disasters but account for 45% of disaster-related deaths, along with an encyclopedia of other disturbing statistics.
A news release by the UNCCD said:
Drought In Numbers, 2022 released on May 11, 2022 to mark Drought Day at UNCCD’s 15th Conference of Parties (COP15, 9-20 May in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire) – calls for making a full global commitment to drought preparedness and resilience in all global regions a top priority.
The report, an authoritative compendium of drought-related information and data, helps inform negotiations of one of several decisions by UNCCD’s 196 member states, to be issued 20 May at the conclusion of COP15.
“The facts and figures of this publication all point in the same direction: an upward trajectory in the duration of droughts and the severity of impacts, not only affecting human societies but also the ecological systems upon which the survival of all life depends, including that of our own species.” says Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD.
Major Facts
The report creates a compelling call to action. For example:
- Since 2000, the number and duration of droughts has risen 29%
- From 1970 to 2019, weather, climate and water hazards accounted for 50% of disasters and 45% of disaster-related deaths, mostly in developing countries
- Droughts represent 15% of natural disasters but took the largest human toll, approximately 650,000 deaths from 1970-2019
- From 1998 to 2017, droughts caused global economic losses of roughly USD 124 billion
- In 2022, more than 2.3 billion people face water stress; almost 160 million children are exposed to severe and prolonged droughts
Additional Highlights Of Drought in Numbers, 2022
Drought around the world (1900-2022)
- More than 10 million people died due to major drought events in the past century, causing several hundred billion USD in economic losses worldwide. And the numbers are rising
- Severe drought affects Africa more than any other continent, with more than 300 events recorded in the past 100 years, accounting for 44% of the global total. More recently, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced the dramatic consequences of climate disasters becoming more frequent and intense
- In the past century, 45 major drought events occurred in Europe, affecting millions of people and resulting in more than USD 27.8 billion in economic losses. Today, an annual average of 15% of the land area and 17% of the population within the European Union is affected by drought
- In the U.S., crop failures and other economic losses due to drought have totaled several hundred billion USD over the last century – USD 249 billion alone since 1980
- Over the past century, the highest total number of humans affected by drought were in Asia
Impact On Human Society
- Over 1.4 billion people were affected by drought from 2000 to 2019. This makes drought the disaster affecting the second-highest number of people, after flooding. Africa suffered from drought more frequently than any other continent with 134 droughts, of which 70 occurred in East Africa
- The effect of severe droughts was estimated to have reduced India’s gross domestic product by 2-5% over the 10 years 1998 to 2017
- As a result of the Australian Millennium Drought, total agricultural productivity fell by 18% from 2002 to 2010
- Greater burdens and suffering are inflicted on women and girls in emerging and developing countries in terms of education levels, nutrition, health, sanitation, and safety
- The burden of water collection – especially in drylands – falls disproportionately on women (72%) and girls (9%), who, in some cases, spend as much as 40% of their calorific intake carrying water
- Droughts have deep, widespread and underestimated impacts on societies, ecosystems, and economies, with only a portion of the actual losses accounted for
- A 2017 California case study showed that an increase of about 100 drought stories over two months was associated with a reduction of 11 to 18% in typical household water-use
Impact On Ecosystems
- The percentage of plants affected by drought has more than doubled in the last 40 years, with about 12 million hectares of land lost each year due to drought and desertification
- Ecosystems progressively turn into carbon sources, especially during extreme drought events, detectable on five of six continents
- One-third of global carbon dioxide emissions is offset by the carbon uptake of terrestrial ecosystems, yet their capacity to sequester carbon is highly sensitive to drought events
- 14% of wetlands critical for migratory species, as listed by Ramsar, are located in drought-prone regions
- The megadrought in Australia contributed to ‘megafires’ in 2019-2020 resulting in the most dramatic loss of habitat for threatened species in postcolonial history; about 3 billion animals were killed or displaced in the Australian wildfires
- Drought-induced peatland fires in Indonesia resulted in decreasing biodiversity, including both the number of individuals as well as plant species
- Photosynthesis in European ecosystems was reduced by 30% during the summer drought of 2003, which resulted in an estimated net carbon release of 0.5 gigatons
- 84% of terrestrial ecosystems are threatened by changing and intensifying wildfires
- During the first two decades of the 21st century, the Amazon experienced 3 widespread droughts, all of which triggered massive forest fires. Drought events are becoming increasingly common in the Amazon region due to land-use and climate change, which are interlinked.
- If Amazonian deforestation continues unabated, 16% of the region’s remaining forests will likely burn by 2050
Predictable Futures
- Climate change is expected to increase the risk of droughts in many vulnerable regions of the world, particularly those with rapid population growth, vulnerable populations and challenges with food security
- Within the next few decades, 129 countries will experience an increase in drought exposure mainly due to climate change alone – 23 primarily due to population growth and 38 mostly due to the interaction between climate change and population growth
- If global warming reaches 3 degrees Celsius by 2100 as some predict, drought losses could be five times higher than they are today, with the largest increase in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic regions of Europe
- In Angola, more than 40% of livestock, a significant livelihood source accounting for 31.4% of the agricultural GDP, is currently exposed to droughts and expected to rise to 70% under projected climate conditions
- In the E.U. and U.K., annual losses from drought are currently estimated to be around EUR 9 billion and projected to rise to more than EUR 65 billion without meaningful climate action
The Risks
Unless action is stepped up, the UN body said:
- By 2030, an estimated 700 million people will be at risk of being displaced by drought
- By 2040, an estimated one in four children will live in areas with extreme water shortages
- By 2050, droughts may affect over three-quarters of the world’s population, and an estimated 4.8-5.7 billion people will live in areas that are water-scarce for at least one month each year, up from 3.6 billion today. And up to 216 million people could be forced to migrate by 2050, largely due to drought in combination with other factors including water scarcity, declining crop productivity, sea-level rise, and overpopulation
“We are at a crossroads,” says Mr. Thiaw. “We need to steer toward the solutions rather than continuing with destructive actions, believing that marginal change can heal systemic failure.”
“One of the best, most comprehensive solutions is land restoration, which addresses many of the underlying factors of degraded water cycles and the loss of soil fertility. We must build and rebuild our landscapes better, mimicking nature wherever possible and creating functional ecological systems.”
Beyond restoration, he adds, is the need for a paradigm shift from ‘reactive’ and ‘crisis-based’ approaches to ‘proactive’ and ‘risk-based’ drought management approaches involving coordination, communication and cooperation, driven by sufficient finance and political will.
The Requirements
The report suggested:
- Sustainable and efficient agricultural management techniques that grow more food on less land and with less water
- Changes in our relationships with food, fodder and fiber, moving toward plant-based diets, and reducing or stopping the consumption of animals
- Concerted policy and partnerships at all levels
- Development and implementation of integrated drought action plans
- Set up effective early-warning systems that work across boundaries
- Deployment of new technologies such as satellite monitoring and artificial intelligence to guide decisions with greater precision
- Regular monitoring and reporting to ensure continuous improvement
- Mobilize sustainable finance to improve drought resilience at the local level
- Invest in soil health
- Work together and include and mobilize farmers, local communities, businesses, consumers, investors, entrepreneurs and, above all, young people
The new UNCCD report notes that 128 countries have expressed willingness to achieve or exceed Land Degradation Neutrality. And nearly 70 countries participated in the UNCCD’s global drought initiative, which aims to shift from reactive approaches to drought to a proactive and risk-reducing approach.
Thiaw underlined the importance of promoting public awareness about desertification and drought, and letting people know the problems can be effectively tackled “through ingenuity, commitment and solidarity.”
“We all must live up to our responsibility to ensure the health of present and future generations, wholeheartedly and without delay.”
Interrelated Areas
The COP15 decision on drought is expected to touch on five interrelated areas:
- drought policies
- early warning, monitoring and assessment
- knowledge sharing and learning
- partnerships and coordination, and
- drought finance
Successful Cases
- By adopting drip irrigation, small-scale vegetable farmers in drought-prone provinces of VietNam (Binh Phouc), Cambodia (Prey Veng and Svay Reing), the Philippines (Lantapan and Bukidnon) and Indonesia (Reing and Bogor, West Java; Rembang, East Java) were able to increase water use efficiency by up to 43% and yield by 8-15%
- With the highest water efficiency rate in agriculture, reaching a 70-80% rate, drip irrigation has helped to solve the problem of water scarcity in Israel
Other Highlights
- Up to USD 1.4 trillion in production value can be generated globally by adopting sustainable land and water management practices
- Approximately 4 million hectares of degraded land within “strict intervention zones” have been rehabilitated under the framework of the African Union–led restoration initiative known as the Great Green Wall – 4% of the Wall’s ultimate target of restoring 100 million hectares, helping to reduce the immanent threats of desertification and drought
The 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD, 9-20 May, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire) is focused on:
- The restoration of 1 billion hectares of degraded land between now and 2030
- Future-proofing land use against the impacts of climate change, and
- Tackling escalating droughts, sand and dust storms, wildfires and other disaster risks.
More than a dozen heads of state and government, ministers, and at least 2,000 delegates from 196 countries and the EU, are expected to attend.
UNCCD is the global vision and voice for land. The organization unites governments, scientists, policymakers, private sector and communities around a shared vision and global action to restore and manage the world’s land for the sustainability of humanity and the planet. Much more than an international treaty signed by 197 parties, UNCCD is a multilateral commitment to mitigating today’s impacts of land degradation and advancing tomorrow’s land stewardship in order to provide food, water, shelter and economic opportunity to all people in an equitable and inclusive manner.
Even Europe is said to be suffering to a growing extent from agricultural losses related to drought, as is North America, while South America’s Amazon rainforest is expected to lose 16% of its remaining mass by 2050 if behavioral patterns are not changed.
Telling Stories
Merely telling stories about droughts can have an effect, one 2017 case study found – inserting 100 drought stories into the news cycle over two months led to a reduction of between 11 and 18% in household water use in California. Ultimately, the organization hopes to restore one billion hectares of “degraded” land by 2030 and preemptively tackle “escalating droughts, sand and dust storms, wildfires and other disaster risks,” in many cases by removing humans from the equation – i.e. “future-proofing land use against the impacts of climate change.”
The slain Palestinian TV journalist Sherine Abu Akleh holds American citizenship. But I expect that the United States will not do anything because Sherine is Palestinian and the killer is Zionist. And when the killer is a Zionist, America always does nothing, even if the victim is an American.
I read a while ago the testimony of an American sailor on the American ship Liberty, which Israel bombed in 67 to hold Egypt responsible. But the game was known to America, which did not do anything against Israel. The ship survivors tried to raise their voices to hold Israel accountable but without any result.
The Zionists lie as they breathe, and this is their history since they invade Palestine. Their record from A to U is based on a lies, forgery, and inverting the facts. Even when the Zionists killed the child Muhammad al-Durra during the 1987 intifada, they tried to evade it by saying that the fire was from Palestinians.
And the same thing we heard today about Shireen Abu Akleh, and will listen to the same falsification every time the Zionists commit a crime.
Why did Israel kill the journalist Shireen Abu Akleh?
The Palestinians usually do not ask this question because they know that Israel does not want anyone to learn about its criminal acts. The Zionist strategy is to make zero noise about the crimes they commit.
Because the Zionist project-based from the beginning to end, on lies, falsification of the truth, and fabrication of facts. It is natural that whoever tries to confront the Zionist lies should be punished by all means which include killing, intimidation, arrest etc.
Salim Nazzal is a Palestinian Norwegian researcher, lecturer playwright and poet, wrote more than 17 books such as Perspectives on thought, culture and political sociology, in thought, culture and ideology, the road to Baghdad
Shortly after Russia was sanctioned for invading Ukraine in late February, Russia’s state-run space agency, Roscosmos, announced that it was officially suspending the U.S. from an upcoming Venus exploration mission. Weeks later, on March 17, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the suspension of a joint mission to Mars with Roscosmos, and further said that it would not be taking part in upcoming Roscosmos missions to the moon.
These decisions have naturally generated concern across the space industry and political landscape. For decades, Russian and Western countries have collaborated in space despite flare-ups in tensions on Earth. In 1975, the U.S. Apollo capsule linked up with the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft briefly as a symbol of cooperation amid the Cold War. In 1995, the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir.
And in 1998, the International Space Station (ISS) was launched, featuring a Russian Orbital Segment (ROS) and a United States Orbital Segment (USOS), the latter being operated by NASA, the ESA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Sustained cooperation on the ISS has been a notable exception to the growing tensions between Russia and the Western states over the last decade. But in April, Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, declared that Russia would end cooperation on the ISS, as well as other joint projects, if sanctions against Russia were not lifted. While such threats have been issued before, notably after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the heightened confrontation between Russia and the West since the start of the Ukrainian invasion has reinforced this possibility.
NASA, meanwhile, chose to downplay Rogozin’s claims and stated that it will continue to operate the ISS until at least 2030. But Roscosmos has previously stated that it intends to develop its own space station by 2025, and has also revealed plans for a potential manned mission to the moon. Russia’s GLONASS satellite navigation system, which achieved global coverage in 2011, has also become a viable rival to the United States’ GPS system. These developments show the Kremlin’s growing commitment to pursuing its own interests in space without partnering with Western states.
In comparison, Roscosmos has increased its collaboration with the China National Space Administration (CNSA), particularly after the first wave of Western sanctions in 2014. In 2021, China and Russia announced plans to build a lunar research station, a direct rival to NASA’s Gateway project, which will be coordinated with the space agencies from Europe, Japan, and Canada.
China has already created its own space station, the Tiangong Space Station, which was launched in 2021. While far smaller than the ISS, China’s space agency has six more launches planned this year to complete the installation. China also sent a rover to the far side of the moon in 2019, as well as to Mars in 2021, and has announced plans for its own manned moon mission this decade.
While the space programs of some countries in the Global South, such as India, Brazil, Indonesia, and Iran, are certainly less impressive, their development demonstrates the growing accessibility to space, which has long been dominated by Russia, China, and Western states. More than 70 countries now have space agencies, while 14 are capable of orbital launch.
For these countries, success in space in recent years has often come from collaborating with existing space powers. In 2005, Iran’s first satellite was built and launched in Russia, while in 2008, China, Iran, and Thailand launched a joint research satellite on a Chinese rocket. Technology sharing, domestic innovation, and decreasing costs have also allowed more countries to compete in space. India made history in 2013 after it sent its own orbiter to Mars, notably on a smaller budget than the space movie “Gravity,” which came out the same year.
The growing number of countries active in Earth’s orbit and beyond have also revitalized fears of the possibility of the militarization of space. So far, only Russia, China, the U.S., and India have successfully demonstrated anti-satellite weapons. Other countries, however, including Iran and Israel, are believed to either be developing or already have similar capabilities.
Of course, Western countries remain far ahead technologically than any other state or group of states. NASA’s Artemis 1 mission, for example, aims to place humans on the moon again by 2025, while three NASA rovers are currently active on Mars. NASA’s unmanned X-37B program—which began in 1999, was transferred to the U.S. military in 2004, and is now being run by the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office—has so far conducted four missions, while collaborative projects with the ESA have further underlined Western dominance in space.
But a growing phenomenon in space is the role of private companies. They have been involved in many of NASA’s and the ESA’s high-profile projects, including Boeing’s involvement in the X-37B project. Largely based in the U.S. and the UK, these companies have helped reduce costs and have increased opportunities for government space agencies, and they will be essential for exploiting the vast resources on the moon, asteroids, and other celestial bodies.
Though hundreds of space-related companies exist, a handful have stood out as pioneers of the modern space age. Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, owned by entrepreneurs Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson respectively, both made history in 2021 after conducting their own manned space flights. Blue Origin, defense contractor Lockheed Martin, and other corporations have also signed contracts to create private space stations in the future.
The most notable private company operating in space, however, is SpaceX, which is owned by entrepreneur Elon Musk. In recent years, the company has helped reduce the United States’ dependency on Russian Soyuz rockets to bring astronauts and deliveries to the ISS following the termination of the NASA program as a consequence of the Ukraine war.
SpaceX has launched more than 2,000 Starlink satellites into space, with plans to launch more than 12,000 by 2026. Most will form part of the Starlink project that aims to provide internet access to populations around the world.
Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted at Elon Musk in February to use the Starlink project to bring internet to Ukraine after some services were disrupted by the Russian invasion. Within days, Starlink was active across the country, and in early May, Ukrainian officials stated that 150,000 Ukrainians were using the service daily.
The use of Starlink satellites was no doubt seen in Moscow as a direct challenge to the Kremlin. While Russia is currently unlikely to attack the network, it has raised questions as to how future confrontations between private companies and countries in space might play out. The growing use of private military companies on Earth by both states and the private sector could inspire similar moves to protect government and private assets in space.
The growing profile of private space-related companies threatens to upend the rules of regulations regarding space, most of which were written decades ago. This includes the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which through Article VI established that countries have the legal authority to regulate space and not international bodies, with private companies not yet having started space exploration when the treaty was finalized. The Artemis Accords, a modern U.S.-sponsored agreement to regulate space created in 2020, has so far only been signed by 16 countries.
Nonetheless, the increasingly competitive space industry has already demonstrated that even smaller countries can play a large role in it. Overseeing the development of technologies and tempering the weaponization of space, by both countries and companies, should become a priority globally to help ensure that growing competition in space does not lead to avoidable and destructive consequences on Earth.
John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C. He is a contributing editor to Strategic Policy and a contributor to several other foreign affairs publications. He is currently finishing a book on Russia to be published in 2022.
This article was produced by Globetrotter.
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