Sand, dust storms affect about 330 million people due to climate change: UN

Nearly fractional the planetary colonisation has besides been exposed to particulate levels exceeding WHO information thresholds.

A caller study by the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has recovered that soil and particulate storms are starring to “premature deaths” owed to clime change, with much than 330 cardinal radical successful 150 countries affected.

On Saturday, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) marked the International Day of Combating Sand and Dust Storms and its designation of 2025 – 2034 arsenic the UN Decade connected Combating Sand and Dust Storms.

The storms “are accelerated becoming 1 of the astir overlooked yet far-reaching planetary challenges of our time”, said Assembly President Philemon Yang. “They are driven by clime change, onshore degradation and unsustainable practices.”

The secretary-general of WMO, Celeste Saulo, said connected Thursday that soil and particulate storms bash not conscionable mean “dirty windows and hazy skies. They harm the wellness and prime of beingness of millions of radical and outgo galore millions of dollars done disruption to aerial and crushed transport, connected agriculture and connected star vigor production.”

Airborne particles from these storms lend to 7 cardinal premature deaths annually, said Yang, adding that they trigger respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and trim harvest yields by up to 25%, causing hunger and migration.

“About 2 cardinal tonnes of particulate are emitted yearly, equivalent to 300 Great Pyramids of Giza” successful Egypt, Laura Paterson, the WMO’s UN representative, told the UNGA.

More than 80% of the world’s particulate comes from the deserts successful North Africa and the Middle East, added Paterson, but it has a planetary effect due to the fact that the particles tin question hundreds and adjacent thousands of kilometres crossed continents and oceans.

Rock formations basal successful the Sahara Desert extracurricular the metropolis centre of Djanet, a southeastern Algerian oasis town, connected July 5, 2025 [Audrey Thibert/AP]

Undersecretary-General Rola Dashti, caput of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, told the assembly the storms’ economical costs are “staggering”.

In the Middle East and North Africa, it costs $150bn, astir 2.5% of gross home merchandise (GDP), annually to woody with particulate and soil storms, she said.

“This outpouring alone, the Arab portion experienced acute disruption,” Dashti said, citing terrible storms successful Iraq that overwhelmed hospitals with respiratory cases and storms successful Kuwait and Iran that forced schoolhouse and bureau closures.

Dust from the Sahara Desert successful Africa has travelled arsenic acold arsenic the Caribbean and Florida, she said. For the United States, particulate and upwind erosion caused $154bn successful harm successful 2017, a quadrupling of the magnitude since 1995, according to a survey successful the technological diary Nature.

The WMO and World Health Organization besides warned that the wellness load is rising sharply, with 3.8 cardinal radical – astir fractional the planetary colonisation – exposed to particulate levels exceeding WHO information thresholds betwixt 2018 and 2022, up from 2.9 cardinal radical affected betwixt 2003 and 2007.