Union Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Prakash Javadekar and Executive Secretary, UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Ibrahim Thiaw jointly inaugurated the 12- day 14th Conference of Parties (COP14) to UNCCD at India Expo Centre & Mart, Greater Noida yesterday.

Environment Minister who is also the elected COP President for next two years, expressed India’s resounding commitment to finding a long-term solution for minimizing the impact of desertification and land degradation.

With an endeavour to promote green activities The Environment Minister stated, “Let us be optimistic. We must have faith in our action, I am optimistic about future and confident that if human actions have caused damage, further human action cam also restore the land ecology and environment”.

Thiaw said, “For the next two weeks we are over six thousand tasked with making life better for the 3 and half billion affected by the degradation of three quarters of our land”.

MoS, MoEF&CC, Babul Supriyo said “India has been proactive in combating land degradation, desertification and drought. We have added more than 15000 Sq km of tree cover inside and outside forest areas in last 5 years, which is a big success in land restoration”.

There will be many side-events and exhibitions to demonstrate country’s present and upcoming effort to combat desertification and drought and to achieve land degradation neutrality from all over the world. India Pavilion is also launched for showcasing the success stories and achievements of India depicting the nexus between land, water, energy, biodiversity, climate change, science and technology.

The Conference is being attended by delegates from 197 parties comprising of scientists and representatives of national and local governments, global business leaders, NGOs, gender-based organisations, youth groups, journalists, and faith and community groups, who will present and share their expertise and give an overview to achieve their goals at the Conference.

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was adopted in Paris on 17 June 1994 and ratified by 196 countries & European Union. India ratified the UNCCD Convention on 17th December 1996. This convention can be called as “Mother convention” of the other two Rio Conventions that emerged as a major outcome of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit viz. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

The objective of the COP 14, accompanied with fourteenth meeting of Committee on Science and Technology (CST 14) and eighteenth meeting of Committee to Review the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 18), is to discuss on various issues of land such as sustainable land management, reversing land degradation, mitigating drought, halting desertification, addressing sand and dust storms, linkages with gender, tenure, etc. and guide the Convention as global and national circumstances needs change.