The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has chosen Saudi Arabia to host World Environment Day 2024 which will center on the theme of “land restoration.” Saudi Arabia has an incredible vision for mangrove reforestation and it is starting to open up archeology from the past to foreigners and international research institutions, but as it looks to tourism from the West Saudi Arabia is very misguided about new community building seen with Neom projects which are completely out of line with sustainable development goals. It’s like they took some great sales teams from Europe on the most “eco” ideas they could find on paper and multiplied everything by a trillion.
But putting Saudi Arabia in the center of the discussion, if only for an event like World Environment Day, will open the nation to criticism and balance from environmentalists around the world. It may be Saudi territory, but nature and the world should belong to every human/
According to UNEP, the event will “accelerate action on the restoration of landscapes and ecosystems.”
World Environment Day, established by UNEP in 1972 is celebrated annually on June 5, and encourages awareness and action for the protection of the environment. It is supported by many non-governmental organizations, businesses, government entities, and represents the primary United Nations outreach day supporting the environment. It is also called Eco Day, Environment Day, WED (world environment day).
Over the past five decades, the Day has grown to be one of the largest global platforms for environmental outreach. Tens of millions of people participate online and through in-person activities, events and actions around the world. 2024 will mark the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. The sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) will be held in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, from 2 to 13 December 2024.
According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, up to 40 per cent of the planet’s land is degraded, directly affecting half of the world’s population and threatening roughly half of global GDP, $44 trillionUSD. The number and duration of droughts has increased by 29 per cent since 2000 – without urgent action, droughts may affect over three-quarters of the world’s population by 2050.
Land restoration is a key pillar of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, which is critical to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
If I look at the track record of Saudi Arabia with its production and manipulation of cost of fossil fuels by Saudi Aramco and its apparent lack of awareness for sustainable development at all of Neom‘s projects like The Line and a desert ski-hill for a planet on fire, it would make more sense to choose a country like Israel to show the world how to combat desertification: not by buying the latest in desalination technologies, but by inventing and implementing new technologies.
Israel also has an efficient mode of watering crops, using drip irrigation, a process the country invented decades ago. These facts matched with advances in agriculture and reforestation would make Israel an obvious choice. But the world is still kowtowing to the highest bidder. So big oil money wins the game, again.
