To learn more, revisit our full coverage from the UNCCD COP16.
Following the disappointments of the Biodiversity COP16 in Cali and COP29 in Baku, the pressure was on in Riyadh for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP16 – the last of this year’s three Rio Convention COPs – to salvage a meaningful deal.
Held in the Saudi capital from 2–13 December, the UNCCD COP16 aimed to accelerate global efforts in combating desertification, land degradation and drought. Its main objectives were to enhance drought resilience, promote land restoration and mobilize finance for sustainable land management.
Hopes were relatively high heading into this COP, which was billed as the first action-oriented UNCCD COP, held at a time of growing public recognition of the importance of land.
Here’s a round-up of what unfolded in Riyadh and what we witnessed at the scene of the action.
The UNCCD COP16 saw the launch of the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership, to which countries pledged more than USD 12 billion to enhance drought preparedness and resilience globally.
Spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, this initiative was strongly supported by most African countries that are threatened by severe drought impacts. However, many Global North countries, including the U.S. and EU member states, only offered conditional support pending clarity on funding mechanisms.
Some countries, especially those in Africa, Latin America and Asia, emphasized the urgent need for restoration and reaffirmed their restoration goals as part of broader sustainability efforts. EU member states supported this commitment, stating that it aligned with broader global climate and biodiversity targets.
As expected, Global South countries also widely backed programs around capacity development and technology transfer, emphasizing knowledge sharing and technical assistance. This received the support of some Global North countries, including Germany and Japan.
Despite being able to only mobilize USD 12 billion, countries recognized and emphasized the need to ramp up financing, including through innovative models such as public–private partnerships.
Saudi Arabia took the opportunity to highlight its sustainability initiatives to attract private investment – a surprising show of leadership from a petrostate that had openly undermined any attempt to even mention fossil fuels at COP29.
The African group of negotiators demanded legally binding agreements and increased financial flows to help African countries adapt to drought and land degradation. However, these demands faced resistance from the U.S. and EU member states, which pushed instead for non-binding measures and conditional financial support.
As with the Biodiversity COP16, Indigenous Peoples and local communities received a boost as countries agreed to establish a caucus to ensure their representation.
The conference also recognized the role of women and girls in sustainable land management – a massive step forward as land tenure and ownership are still largely concentrated in the hands of men in many parts of the world.
Lastly, countries recognized the need to engage the private sector and strengthen the role of science in decision making on land management by continuing the Convention’s Science-Policy Interface.
Despite these successes, delegates were unable to agree on a number of core issues, some of which were deferred to COP17 in 2026. But what were some of these issues, and just how critical are they to the Convention?
Like the two COPs before it, the UNCCD COP16 fell short of reaching a decisive agreement to eliminate environmentally harmful subsidies. What could this inaction mean for land, biodiversity and climate action?
Governments and other actors, such as the private sector, are injecting over USD 500 billion annually into agribusiness through explicit and implicit subsidies. This figure could rise to an alarming USD 1.7 trillion by 2030.
These subsidies, which promote the use of pesticides, inorganic fertilizers, cheap agricultural diesel and more, have been widely marketed as solutions to accelerate food production, particularly in the Global South.
However, nearly 90 percent of these subsidies are harmful to biodiversity and nature more broadly, and they also exacerbate land degradation and the climate crisis.
“We should not be doing one thing and the opposite at the same time,” said Peter Umunay, agrifood systems and land use planning portfolio lead at the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
“Why do we have a lot of money going to subsidies and to subsidize activities that will negatively impact the environment and climate? Why don’t we think about using those resources to maintain and sustain our environment instead?”
Harmful subsidies in agriculture contribute up to 14 percent of global deforestation – destroying critical habitats and emitting vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Nitrogen fertilizers also emit nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas 270 times more potent than carbon dioxide. These emissions have increased by over 40 percent since 1980 and are now rising more quickly than ever.
While there were extensive discussions on harmful subsidies at the UNCCD COP, one negotiator told us that they only scratched the surface.
“There is an urgent need to set aside political sentiments and purely profit-driven motivations and take decisive action to phase them out,” they told us on the condition of anonymity.
“For many farmers and land users, it’s more profitable to use chemical inputs and monocultures despite their negative impacts on land and ecosystems.”
There is compelling evidence for nature-positive incentives and practices that can halt degradation and promote land health while maintaining or raising profit margins.
These include regenerative agriculture, high-density adaptive grazing and agroforestry, which can improve soil and land health, enhance biodiversity, sequester carbon and facilitate climate adaptation.
These practices are also good for farmers – increasing productivity by 36 to 100 percent compared to monocultures.
“Agrifood systems transformation has the potential for facilitating interlinkages between the three conventions,” said AbdulHakim Elware, assistant director general and regional representative for the Near East and North Africa of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“If we invest in agrifood systems transformation by developing more green cover for food purposes, we will not only achieve food security, prosperity and sustainable development but also enhance biodiversity and overcome desertification and the impacts of climate change.”
The lack of decisive action to eliminate harmful subsidies was a huge missed opportunity at UNCCD COP16.
Of course, it is completely illogical to preach sustainable land practices while continuing to financially prop up harmful ones. But with 5 to 7 million hectares of land degraded each year, will governments and stakeholders realize and change course before it’s too late?
There was a common thread across all three COPs this year: the tragedy of financing.
In Cali, negotiators couldn’t agree a deal on a new global biodiversity fund, while in Baku, rich countries offered their less developed counterparts just a tiny fraction of the climate finance they needed.
Similarly, the UNCCD COP also failed to agree on establishing a drought financing protocol. Pledges to tackle desertification, land degradation and drought totaled just USD 12 billion, compared to the USD 355 billion required annually by 2030.
Delegates started by debating the establishment of a legally binding drought protocol, focusing mainly on a drought fund. This was mainly advocated by the African group and small island developing states (SIDS), backed by the Saudis, but opposed by the U.S., EU, Australia and several Latin American countries, citing cost concerns.
Ultimately, the deadlock led to the negotiations being deferred to COP17 in 2026. According to one negotiator, several countries opposed creating legally binding instruments around the drought fund, partly due to economic and political uncertainties that could jeopardize the future of their commitments.
This financing failure compromises any action on drought and undermines efforts to build drought resilience in drylands, sending ripples across the landscapes that cover 41 percent of the Earth’s land area and sustain over 2 billion livelihoods.
This reflects a harsh reality: public finance alone will not be enough to drive sustainable landscapes and halt degradation. The GEF, which has been a major financing mechanism for the COPs, is already overstretched.
“We have a shared planet to manage, but we have failed to establish a sufficient common pool resource mobilization and management system to which everyone commits,” lamented one negotiator who didn’t want to be named.
This financing gap will only be filled if we can develop alternative financing mechanisms and build meaningful partnerships to raise the funds needed.
“While public actors chart the way forward for sustainable landscapes and halting degradation, a vast proportion of the land is owned privately by individuals or firms,” another negotiator told us.
“It is time for the private sector to actively mobilize resources and finance for proactive drought risk and sustainable land management.”
In Riyadh, countries agreed to mandate the UNCCD to mobilize private-sector engagement through the Business4Land initiative, which will harness the power of the private sector to tackle land degradation and promote sustainable land management.
Private-sector involvement also brings the added benefit of introducing new technologies and innovations such as agtech, watertech and renewable energy to build drought resilience. One successful example is the collaboration between the Great Green Wall Accelerator and DeserTech.
With droughts set to increase in frequency and intensity by up to 35 percent by mid-century, it’s more critical than ever to establish effective mechanisms to protect against them.
At COP28 last year, the presidencies of all three COPs issued a joint statement on climate, nature and people where they called for a “whole-of-society approach” to tackle the world’s climate, biodiversity and land challenges.
So far, we’ve discussed the roles of governments, scientists, financiers and the private sector. But where does civil society come in?
The UNCCD COP16 saw a record number of civil society organizations (CSOs) in attendance, with approximately 4,000 delegates from 1,150 organizations representing women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, development actors and many other causes.
“I have been to five COPs, and framing this COP as the ‘land COP’ has been helpful in garnering widespread interest,” said Ermias Betemariam, a land health scientist at CIFOR-ICRAF.
“Sustainable land management is getting a lot of traction, particularly the use of trees, forests, agroforestry and nature-based solutions, which will continue to play a role in the Rio Conventions.”
During the conference, civil society groups pushed for gender-responsive policies, strategic financing and resource mobilization mechanisms such as blended finance, people-centered land governance, land tenure security, restoration, sustainable agrifood systems and community resilience.
They also emphasized the important role of local communities, Indigenous Peoples and grassroots land stewards, who are crucial custodians for landscapes across the globe.
Despite their best efforts to make their voices heard, CSOs could only watch the negotiations from the sidelines, as was the case at the biodiversity and climate COPs, as country delegates were reluctant to offer them anything beyond observer status.
But in a major win for civil society, countries did reach a historic decision to create a caucus for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. They also called for the elimination of all barriers preventing women and girls from engaging in policies and programmes related to land degradation and drought.
Beyond this COP, civil society groups must continue to advocate for their inclusion and push for mechanisms that ensure their voices are heard. This may include strengthening alliances, leveraging public opinion and finding alternative platforms for influence.
Ultimately, despite the many successes at the UNCCD COP16, its caveats made for a bittersweet ending to the three COPs this year.
But there is no time for despair: in 2026, all eyes will turn to COP17 in Mongolia, where country delegates will gather once again to pick up where they left off.
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