The twinning of Land degradation and climate change causes double trouble as they drive each other in a cyclical downward spiral. They are eroding the fertile topsoil and depleting the freshwater sources – rivers, lakes, glaciers, and aquifers – that sustain life. More than half of all agricultural land is already degraded. Every decade, we are losing at least 120 million hectares of land, an area the size of South Africa, to desertification and drought alone. But 78% of degrading land now is in the humid regions – outside areas normally prone to drought. This is adding greenhouse gases into the air. Soil formation requires carbon. A lot of it is stored in the soil and the vegetation that grows in the soil. But we are releasing more and more carbon as we clear vegetation, especially for agriculture. Carbon is then trapped in the air as carbon dioxide, with nowhere to go, because degraded land loses its ability to capture carbon back into the soil. In this way, land degradation fuels climate change. Some of the 25% of greenhouse gases emissions from agriculture have come about in this way. Land degradation was a global challenge long before climate change. But global warming is enabling land degradation. Since 1951, temperatures have risen by 0.6-0.7 degrees Celsius. With warming, many regions are receiving less or excess water. New areas are being degraded. Floods and droughts are destroying the ability of the land to drain water efficiently, and eroding fertile soil. Compared to 1986 to 2005, it could get warmer by a further 0.3-0.7 degrees Celsius between 2016 and 2035, and by 1.5 degrees by the end of the century, compared to the warming that took place between 1850 and 1900. Climate change is making a bad situation worse. The consequences may be unbearable, mostly because they may occur in parallel and overtax existing social, political, and economic structures.
