The years 2025 to 2034 will be known as the United Nations Decade on Combating Sand and Dust Storms as part of an international plan to reduce these extreme weather events, some caused by poor land and water use.
The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly's resolution adopted by consensus on Wednesday is meant to improve cross-border cooperation, early warning systems, and the sharing of climate and weather information. It was approved two days ahead of the International Day of Combating Sand and Dust Storms, a new observance to be held for the first time on Friday.
Two trillion tons a year of sand and dust are emitted into the atmosphere, mainly due to natural conditions in dry lands and sub-humid regions with little vegetation, according to a 2022 report by the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, or UNCCD, a global land stewardship treaty.
Three-quarters of the sand and dust wind up back on land; the remaining quarter goes into the ocean. The report notes that human-related climate change has an impact on the increased frequency and intensity of severe weather events, including sand and dust storms.
That's due to "changes in several drivers of these storms," it says, "including wind velocity, prolonged dry spells and reduced rainfall in source areas, which decreases soil moisture and vegetation cover. Dust generation and sand dune movement often increase in areas affected by periodic drought."
Proponents of the decade-long initiative – introduced by Uganda’s U.N. Ambassador Godfrey Kwoba for the Group of 77, a U.N.-member alliance of developing nations, and China – cite a climate-related acceleration in extreme weather events that threatens public health and economies from central Africa to northern China. The G-77 now has 134 countries.
Their resolution urges the U.N. secretary-general to plan and organize a decade of activities to combat sand and dust storms that should be paid for through voluntary contributions, including from the private sector.
It also calls on the Food and Agriculture Organization to promote mitigation practices in the affected countries, including “sustainable land use management, agroforestry, shelter belts, afforestation/reforestation and land restoration programs.”
Most of the U.N.'s Global Goals threatened
The resolution, which calls sand and dust storms "an issue of international concern," implies that the costs of the initiative will be far outweighed by the devastating impacts of the storms, “the costs of which are measured in economic, social and environmental terms" and increasingly threaten 11 of the U.N.'s already embattled 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.
UNCCD says dust storms cost economies hundreds of millions of dollars a year in areas like communications, energy, transport, farmland and jobs.
That includes public health, education, and food security; storms exacerbate respiratory illnesses in people and destroy crops and livestock. The report estimates at least 25% of global dust emissions come from human activities, such as unsustainable land management and water use.
Sand and dust storms "usually result in directly attributable fatalities or injuries, with most health-related impacts associated with other health conditions such as respiratory diseases, eye problems or cardiovascular diseases," the report says, adding that the storms can also be "the proximate cause of fatalities and injuries due to transport accidents, most commonly road accidents in conditions of high sand and dust.
