UN Climate Change News, 2 September 2025 - Sand and dust storms are a global challenge, affecting millions of people each year across continents. They damage crops and infrastructure, cause respiratory illnesses, disrupt transport, and reduce the efficiency of solar power. While sand and dust storms are mostly natural phenomena, about 25% are driven by land degradation, deforestation, and unsustainable agriculture, which significantly increase their intensity and frequency. Their impacts are felt across borders and sectors, threatening progress on 11 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
As part of the United Nations Coalition on Combating Sand and Dust Storms, UN Climate Change is supporting countries in strengthening resilience to sand and dust storms through existing frameworks under the Convention and the Paris Agreement. This includes enabling technical support for the formulation and implementation of national adaptation plans (NAPs), including under the NAP 3.0 initiative, which aims to support Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States in submitting NAPs by 2025, as well as enhancing the adaptation components of national climate plans (NDCs) in the context of NDC 3.0. UN Climate Change also supports countries in reporting sand and dust storm priorities through adaptation communications and biennial transparency reports under the enhanced transparency framework.
Recognizing the growing climate and environmental threats of sand and dust storm, the United Nations General Assembly has declared 2025-2034 the Decade on Combating Sand and Dust Storms. The initiative seeks to scale up prevention and mitigation measures, particularly in the most affected countries, and strengthen regional and international cooperation. It will be led by the United Nations Coalition on Combating Sand and Dust Storms, a partnership of 20 UN entities including UN Climate Change.
The Decade begins with a series of high-level events in 2025, including the Forum on Fostering Interregional Collaboration on Sand and Dust Storms and the 11th Meeting of the UN Coalition on Combating Sand and Dust Storms in October. Future milestones include discussions at UNCCD COP17 in Mongolia and a mid-term review during the 84th session of the UN General Assembly in 2028-2029.
At its 10th meeting earlier this year in Geneva, the Coalition agreed to promote a unified UN approach, build national capacities, share knowledge, and align sand and dust storm actions with global agendas on climate change, disaster risk reduction, and sustainable land management. Emphasizing the need for multi-sectoral and transboundary solutions, members called for the countries most affected by sand and dust storms to take the lead as "Champions of the Decade."
The urgency of the issue was underscored at the UN General Assembly's High-Level Meeting on sand and dust storms in July, which called for stronger science-based early warning systems, cross-sectoral cooperation, and alignment with global sustainable goals. In this context, SDS-related adaptation actions can advance progress towards the global goal on adaptation, particularly their linkage to several thematic targets of the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience and, where reported by countries, contribute to the collective assessment of progress in the second global stocktake.
