COP27 EU Side Event: Drought: a Global Challenge
In the framework of the COP27 conference in Sharm-el-Sheikh under the Presidency of Egypt, the European Commission organised more than 120 Side Events from 7 to 18 November 2022.
One of these was the thematic side event on drought, in the aftermath of the 2022 extreme drought episode in Europe. As highlighted in its title, Europe is not the only region which has been affected by such an extreme event. Indeed, the Global and European Drought Observatories (GDO and EDO) have released a series of reports throughout the year detailing the drought episodes affecting many areas of the globe: Europe (with focused reports on the Western Mediterranean, Northern Italy, and the Netherlands), Eastern Africa (with focused reports on Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia), and China. South America continues to experience- since 2019 one of its worst droughts and an updated report on the situation in the La Plata Basin and its impacts is in preparation.
Furthermore, in the coming decades, drought events are expected to be more frequent, affect larger areas and become more severe, affecting key socio-economic sectors and ecosystems, often triggering cascading effects