— The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which brings together 196 countries and the European Union, now says 1.5 billion hectares (3.7 billion acres) must be restored by decade's end to combat crises including escalating droughts.
— UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called it a "moonshot moment": a 12-day meeting for the UNCCD, looking to protect and restore land and respond to drought amid the onslaught of climate change.
— The last such meeting, or "Conference of the Parties" (COP) to the convention, held in Ivory Coast in 2022, produced a commitment to "accelerating the restoration of one billion hectares of degraded land by 2030".
— A day before the COP16 talks in Saudi Arabia, home to one of the world's biggest deserts, a new UN report warned that forest loss and degraded soils were reducing resilience to climate change and biodiversity loss.
— Matthew Archer, assistant professor in the Department of Society Studies at Maastricht University and author of "Unsustainable: Measurement, Reporting and the Limits of Corporate Sustainability", was dismissive of the Saudi meeting. It is part of the "COP charade (that) is totally incapable of facilitating the kind of political action that might sufficiently address the socioecological crises we are facing", he told AFP. "I wouldn't hold my breath for COP16 to yield a tenable solution to desertification," added Archer.