Det kan blive landjordens Kyoto-aftale og den er højst påkrævet: På kun to årtier – fra 1981 til 2003 – er 1/5 af klodens landoverflade forringet i en sådan grad, at den har mistet sin ydeevne og ikke kan dyrkes som agerjord – berører halvanden milliard. JOHANNESBURG, 29 May 2013 (IRIN): Talks have begun on giving a global treaty on land degradation (nedslidning /forringelse) more teeth. Almost all the countries of the world have signed up to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and are now in discussions to create a protocol or legal instrument to make the treaty operational. Melchiade Bukuru, chief of UNCCD’s liaison office at the UN headquarters in New York, told IRIN talks on a protocol have gained momentum. The UNCCD secretariat had first tabled the idea for the protocol at the Rio+20 conference in 2012, and the proposed protocol was discussed at recent scientific meetings of the Convention. This is viewed as significant progress, as things often move slowly in multilateral forums. The protocol is aimed at achieving Zero Net Land Degradation (ZNLD). The UNCCD hopes it will help make the Convention operational in the manner that the Kyoto Protocol did for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in attempting to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Ian Hannam is chair of the Sustainable Use of Soils and Desertification Specialist Group at the World Commission on Environmental Law, which falls under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Along with the group’s co-chair, Irene Heuser, and its previous chair, Ben Boer, Mr. Hannam have been campaigning for a protocol since 2012. “A new legal instrument could take the form of a global policy and monitoring framework,” said Hannam and his co-campaigners, adding: “It has also been proposed that such a protocol could incorporate the setting of ZNLD targets by individual countries, for example as a percentage of arable (dyrkbar) land in their jurisdiction, or regions within their jurisdiction.” Wanting a Global Panel on Land and Soil The UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol got countries to set time-bound targets to reduce harmful warming emissions. But it had the benefit of credible scientific data as its foundation – such as the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the rate at which they were warming it. Data and studies on this information are still evolving, but the basis has been established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC = FNs klimapanel). The UNCCD is pushing for the creation of similar body – an Intergovernmental Panel on Land and Soil (IPLS) – as a global authority providing credible and policy-relevant scientific information to help countries make informed decisions on dealing with land degradation and desertification (LDD). At present credible scientific data on the extent of the problem is scarce, said a team of scientists in a report commissioned by the UNCCD in 2012. Five global assessments in the last four decades have provided degradation estimates ranging from 15 percent to 63 percent of global land, and four percent to 74 percent of the Earth’s drylands. The numbers have varied because different methods and factors were used in the calculations. Nevertheless, in the two decades between 1981 and 2003, over 20 percent of the Earth’s surface – on which 1,5 billion people live – has lost its ability to produce, based on the best interpretations of satellite imagery. But this data lacks country-specific details. Læs videre på http://www.irinnews.org/report/98117/global-land-treaty-aims-for-more-teeth Begynd fra: “It is the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] which built the foundation a….”
