Desertification: Rio's stepchild

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) is Rio’s Stepchild, we said. Why? Because it was a neglected and frankly unwanted agreement, signed by the world at the Rio Conference in 1992. It was agreed because African and other developing countries wanted it. It was a sop — give them the crumbs of an agreement, which the rich world did not understand or believe in. In Rio, climate change was the top agenda. Next came the issue of biodiversity conservation — a resource largely surviving in the countries of the South, which need to be conserved and access secured. Then there was the issue of forests — a convention was proposed and staunchly opposed by the developing countries which said it would infringe on their national resources. In all this acrimony, the desertification convention was born.

Today, close to 30 years later, now when the world is beginning to see the deadly impacts of climate change, now when it is still losing the war against the extinction of species and is faced with the dire prospects of catastrophic changes, this forgotten, this neglected convention, must shed its stepchild image. It is the global agreement that will make or break our present and future. The fact is that managing our natural resources, particularly land and water — what this convention is concerned about — is at huge risk today; our own mismanagement is being exacerbated by weird weather events, which are making millions more vulnerable and more marginalised.

But there is another side as well. If we can improve our management of land and water, we can shave off the worst impacts of climate change. We can build wealth for the poorest and improve livelihoods. And, by doing this, we mitigate greenhouse gases (GHG) — growing trees that can sequester carbon dioxide; improving soil health, which captures carbon dioxide; and, most importantly, changing practices of agriculture and diets are reducing emissions of planet-warming gases. So, this convention needs to be moved from the stepchild to the parent.

At the Rio Summit, northern countries asked what this issue had to do with them. Desertification was not a global issue and so, why should there be an international agreement at all? In Rio, African nations, who argued for this convention, had drawn important linkages to how the prices of their commodities were dropping, forcing them to discount their land and this, in turn, was adding to desertification and land degradation.

Today, there should be no doubt that desertification is a global issue — it requires cooperation among nations. The fact is that we are just beginning to see the impacts of climate change. These will become more deadly as temperatures continue to spiral and this spiral gets out of hand. It is also clear that today the poor in the world are the victims of this “human-made” disaster — local or global. The rich do not die in sandstorms. The rich do not lose their livelihoods when the next cyclonic system hits. But the fact is that this weird weather portends what awaits us. The change is not linear, and it is not predictable. It will come as a shock and we will not be prepared for it — the rich in developing world or the developed world. Climate change at the end will be an equaliser — it will impact all.

It is also clear that one impact of this corrosive change — increasing numbers of disasters because of the growing intensity and frequency of weird and abnormal weather — will make the poor poorer. Their impoverishment and marginalisation will add to their desperation to move away from their lands and to seek alternative livelihoods. Their only choice will be to migrate — move to the city or another country. The double jeopardy, as I have called it, will add to the already volatile situation of boat people and walls and migrant counting, which is making our world insecure and violent. This is the cycle of destructive change that we must fight. Desertification is then about our globalised world. Inter-connected and inter-dependent.

This is where the opportunity exists. This convention is not about desertification. It is about fighting desertification. The fact is that every way — in which we choose to fight desertification or land degradation or water scarcity — we will improve livelihoods and end up mitigating climate change. The land and water agenda is at the core of fighting climate change. It is at the core of building local economies to improve the wellbeing of people. To fight poverty. To win the war against human survival. This is what the CCD is about. Now, let's push for global leadership that can  drive this change.

The writer is at the Centre for Science and Environment 

sunita@cseindia.org

Twitter: @sunitanar