The 15th session of the Conference of Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), opens on Monday, May 9, 2022, in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
The COP15 theme, “Land. Life. Legacy: From scarcity to prosperity”, is a call to action to ensure land, which is the lifeline on this planet, will also benefit present and future generations.
The conference will start with a Heads of State summit and high-level segment held back-to-back from May 9 to 10 to create political momentum and raise ambition in particular in meeting the 2030 global commitments on restoration and robust actions that build the resilience of communities that are vulnerable to drought.
Leaders are meeting in Abidjan against the backdrop of a stark warning issued by the UNCCD that up to 40% of all ice-free land is already degraded, with dire consequences for climate, biodiversity and livelihoods.
The conference will focus on the restoration of one billion hectares of degraded land between now and 2030, future-proofing land use against the impacts of climate change, and tackling escalating disaster risks such as droughts, sand and dust storms, and wildfires.
More than a dozen heads of state and government, ministers and at least 2,000 delegates from 196 countries and the European Union are expected to be at the two-week Conference that ends Friday, May 20, 2022.
UNCCD COP15 is the first of the three Rio Conventions meetings to be held in 2022, with Biodiversity COP15 and Climate change COP27 convening later on in Kunming, China and Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, respectively.
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