India to host major UN environment conference in Sept

India will host a major UN environmental conference in September with participation from 197 countries to discuss global strategies required to combat drought and desertification.

The Conference of Parties (CoP) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) will be held at Greater Noida near the national capital between September 2 and 13, 2019.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to attend the high-level segment of the UN meet to be attended by 5,000 to 6,000 delegates from all over the world.

The UNCCD is one of three global treaties that came out of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the other two being the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biodiversity.

India in the past had hosted the CoPs for both UNFCCC (Delhi-2002) and CBD (Hyderabad, 2012).

“We have not won the battle against drought and desertification. About 23% of the world's land is unusable. In every minute, we are losing 23 ha of land and the daily economic cost of land degradation is $1.3 billion,” said Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary, UNCCD.

Thiaw on Tuesday signed the formal agreement with the Union Environment Ministry for hosting the mega event.

“Drought is a major problem in India as 60% of agriculture in India is monsoon dependent. We need to revive the degraded land and make them fertile,” said Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar.