Europe’s worsening drought is an urgent warning. This summer, rivers fell to exceptional lows, crops struggled and wildfires swept through landscapes dried by months of heat. In the UK, farmers have warned that this year’s harvest could be the worst on record, leaving shoppers facing higher prices and smaller vegetables.

Climate change is making droughts more common, longer lasting and more widespread. In 2024, 48% of the land surface had at least one month of drought, a 300% increase from the 1950s.

Against this backdrop, governments gathered in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, for COP17, the UN summit on desertification, land degradation and drought. The talks produced new financial tools and kept drought high on the international agenda, but failed to deliver the global agreement many countries wanted. The hardest decisions were postponed until COP18.

That matters because degraded land is not simply an environmental concern. When soil loses its ability to hold water, harvests become less reliable , farmers struggle and food prices rise. Production shocks in one region can travel through interconnected food supply chains , contributing to shortages and price spikes elsewhere. COP17 may have taken place thousands of miles away, but the success or failure of these negotiations will ultimately be felt much closer to home, in what food is available and what families can afford to put on the table.

What COP17 Achieved And What It Left Behind

For all the diplomatic language, the outcome was straightforward. COP17 advanced new tools for financing and measuring drought resilience, but failed to deliver the decisive global framework many countries had sought.

After difficult negotiations, governments postponed a decision on proactive drought management until COP18. They remain divided over how prescriptive a global instrument should be, who should finance it and how it should connect with the international conventions on climate change and biodiversity.

Even without that agreement, the summit moved forward on several fronts. A $400 million investment facility could help finance drought resilience, while a new global index will allow countries to measure their preparedness. Pastoralists also gained greater recognition as stewards of the world’s rangelands.

The harder question is whether these separate advances will add up to action at the speed and scale required. New funds may sound impressive, but the $77 billion currently invested in restoring land and preparing for drought remains only a fraction of the $355 billion needed each year.

“Nature will not wait for these negotiations, and neither should we,” said Praveena Sridhar, Chief Science Officer at Save Soil. “The crisis is accelerating faster than the talks.”

Her assessment captures the central tension at COP17. The summit created useful building blocks, but not yet a complete system for turning them into coordinated, predictable action.

Desertification Is Reaching Our Dinner Tables

The impact is already reaching consumers. Across Europe, heat and water shortages have damaged maize, soybean and sunflower crops, with some harvest forecasts falling 14% below recent averages . In the United States, drought and wildfires have helped shrink the cattle herd to its lowest level in 75 years, contributing to record beef prices .

Food shortages and rising prices are among the most immediate ways desertification reaches people. As drought, extreme heat and unsustainable farming degrade the soil, productive land yields less food and becomes harder to restore.

The scale of the problem is daunting. Save Soil’s Soil Carbon Sponge analysis estimates that 52% of agricultural land is already degraded.

For Sridhar, that figure leaves little room for delay. “The situation is too urgent for us to wait for perfect political agreement. The scale of the crisis demands nothing less.”

While COP17 kept drought in the international spotlight, the consequences extend far beyond the negotiating room. Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science at UCL, warned of the threat to global food supplies: “Soils are the basis of the global food system. If we degrade too many, we face a huge food crisis and many people will face famine.”

But soil is not only where the crisis is unfolding; it is also where recovery can begin. Healthy soils hold water, store carbon and protect agricultural production during drought. Investing in them can slow desertification, safeguard rural livelihoods and strengthen food security.