Climate change: Drought report sees progressive global catastrophe

Bonn. Since 2023, some of the most severe droughts with the greatest economic damage on record have occurred, according to a UN report. "This is not a dry spell.

"This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I have ever seen," said Mark Svoboda, one of the report's authors, following a statement from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Bonn. UNCCD Director Ibrahim Thiaw said: "Drought is a silent killer." In Somalia alone, government estimates indicate that as early as 2022, around 43,000 people died from the effects of drought and famine.

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The report is titled "Drought Hotspots Around the World, 2023-2025." A selection of the findings: British supermarkets experienced shortages of fruit and vegetables. In Spain, two consecutive dry years caused olive oil prices to double because the olive harvest collapsed by 50 percent. In Brazil, the water level of the Amazon fell so low that it caused mass deaths of fish and rare river dolphins.

The water level in the Panama Canal dropped so much that at times, a third fewer ships could pass through. In Thailand and India, sugar production suffered so severely from the drought that sugar prices in the US rose by 8.9 percent. In Zimbabwe, about 100 elephants died of starvation and thirst in the second half of 2023. In Botswana, 2024 hippos were left high and dry.

According to the report, the ongoing droughts have particularly devastating consequences for women, children, the elderly, the chronically ill, livestock farmers, and smallholders. In East Africa, the number of forced child marriages has more than doubled because families rely on dowries for survival, the report states.

"Drought disproportionately impacts those with the fewest resources," said co-author Kelly Helm Smith. "The world's nations have the means and knowledge to prevent much suffering. The question is whether we have the will."

RND/dpa