Houthi militias have destroyed ecosystems by planting hundreds of thousands of landmines since the start of the conflict in Yemen, the President of the Republic of Yemen told the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt on Monday.
During the two week conference, a total of 40,000 participants are expected to attend Sharm El-Sheikh Climate Implementation Summit, and are set to engage with climate and other overlapping global challenges.
In his opening speech of the Middle East Green Initiative’s activities, chaired by Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, on the sidelines of the COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Dr. Rashad Mohammed Al-Alimi, Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council in Yemen, described the need to implement a green initiative in Yemen following years of conflict.
Al-Alimi said: “We hope that the Middle East Green Initiative will help Yemen rehabilitate the biological and plant diversity systems of lands, forests and green cover, degraded due to the war launched by the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist militias, which destroyed the soil and lives by planting hundreds of thousands of land and naval mines, cutting down trees and displacing the residents – an additional pressure on the biological diversity in general and plant diversity in particular.”
Landmines cause land degradation; through access denial, loss of biodiversity, presence of toxic explosives; damage to the soils’ stability by shattering the soil structure, and causing local compaction, thereby increasing the susceptibility of soil to erosion, according to United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS).
Middle East Green Initiative
The Middle East Green Initiative was launched by the Saudi Crown Prince last year with the aim of reducing carbon emissions from regional hydrocarbon production by more than 60 per cent.
It also aims to plant 50 billion trees across the Middle East and restore an area equivalent to 200 million hectares of degraded land. The initiative is expected to reduce global carbon levels by 2.5 per cent.
In his address, Al-Alimi added that the Middle East Green Initiative is an effective contribution by Saudi Arabia to alleviate heat on the Earth and curbing the negative effects of climate change.
This initiative serves as a platform for regional cooperation to promote the preservation of vegetation, and prepares international and regional effort geared towards creating inter-border cooperation opportunities and establishing peace and development among peoples of the region.
Saudi Arabia said it would contribute $2.5 billion to the Middle East Green Initiative over the next 10 years.
A career politician, Al-Alimi has been serving as the Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, a body given the powers of the President of Yemen, in April this year.
