'An existential threat affecting billions'
Three-quarters of Earth's land became permanently drier in last 3 decades
Climate change is causing unprecedented drying across the Earth — and five billion people could be affected by 2100, a new UN report has warned.
Climate change has made three-quarters of the Earth's land permanently drier in the last three decades, a landmark United Nations (UN) report has warned.
77.6% of Earth's land has become drier in the last three decades compared to the 30 years prior, with drylands expanding by an area larger than India to cover 40.6% of the land on Earth, except for Antarctica.
And the findings, released in a new report by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification ((UNCCD), warn that if the trend continues, up to five billion people could live in drylands by the century's end — causing soils to deplete, water resources to dwindle, and vital ecosystems to collapse.
"For the first time, the aridity crisis has been documented with scientific clarity, revealing an existential threat affecting billions around the globe," Ibrahim Thiaw, the UNCCD executive secretary, said in a statement. "Droughts end. When an area's climate becomes drier, however, the ability to return to previous conditions is lost. The drier climates now affecting vast lands across the globe will not return to how they were and this change is redefining life on Earth."
Maybe I could have posted this in Environment but why change a trend of discussing anything but the environment there? Besides which the mentally deficient Mod there has me banned on some bullshit reason.