UN warns global drought carries $300 bn annual cost

Drought costs the world more than $300 billion each year, the United Nations warned Tuesday in a report published on the second day of international talks on desertification in Saudi Arabia.

Fuelled by “human destruction of the environment,” drought is projected to affect 75 percent of the world’s population by 2050, the report cautioned.

It said the crisis has already exceeded $307 billion in costs annually around the globe.

The warning coincides with a 12-day meeting in Riyadh for the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), seeking to protect and restore land and respond to drought amid ongoing climate change.

The UN urged investment in “nature-based solutions” such as “reforestation, grazing management, and the management, restoration and conservation of watersheds” to cut the price of dessication and benefit the environment.

Marked by devastating droughts in Ecuador, Brazil, Namibia, Malawi and nations bordering the Mediterranean, which sparked fires and produced water and food shortages, 2024 is on course to be the hottest year since records began.

“The economic cost of drought extends beyond immediate agricultural losses. It affects entire supply chains, reduces GDP, impacts livelihoods, and leads to hunger, unemployment, migration, and long-term human security challenges,” Kaveh Madani, a co-author of the UN report, said.

“Managing our land and water resources in a sustainable way is essential to stimulate economic growth and strengthen the resilience of communities trapped in cycles of drought,” Andrea Meza Murillo, a senior UNCCD official, said.

“As talks for a landmark COP decision on drought are underway, the report calls on world leaders to recognize the outsized, and preventable, costs of drought, and to leverage proactive and nature-based solutions to secure human development within planetary boundaries,” she added.