UNDP rep predicts more sandstorms for Iraq this summer

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) representative expects Iraq will again be plagued by sandstorms this summer and said urgent action is needed to combat the environmental devastation.

“Given where we are today, I think, reducing sandstorms is not a short-term issue. So in order to be able to control sandstorms we have to replant a great number of trees. This will not happen overnight. So we are worried that, at least for the coming summer season, more sandstorms will occur along the lines we have seen last year as well,” UNDP Iraq representative Auke Lootsma told Rudaw’s Hawraz Gulpi on Monday.

Growing desertification is caused by the climate crisis, unregulated land and water use, and reduced flows in the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers due to dams upstream. Dozens of sandstorms last summer sent thousands of people to hospital in Iraq and Kurdistan Region.

At a climate conference in Basra last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani announced a plan to plant five million trees to combat desertification. Private banks are footing the bill for half a million of the trees.

The UNDP representative called for “urgent action,” noting that sandstorms are not Iraq’s only environmental problem. “This is not only for curbing sandstorms and their impact but also when it comes to water, when it comes to also the energy transition that Iraq has to go through… moving more and more towards renewable energy,” he said.

Iraq’s water resources are dwindling with the World Bank warning this will have devastating consequences for the economy. “By 2050, a temperature increase of 1 degree Celsius, and a precipitation decrease of 10% would cause a 20% reduction of available freshwater. Under these circumstances, nearly one-third of the irrigated land in Iraq will have no water by the year 2050,” read a 2021 World Bank report. 

Iraq is the fifth-most vulnerable nation in the world to the effects of climate change, including water and food insecurity.

To fulfill its climate obligations under the Paris agreement, Iraq pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by one to two percent through national efforts and by an additional 15 percent with international assistance by 2030.