United Nations talks in Mongolia expose growing drought crisis as climate impacts worsen

BENGALURU, India (AP) — Representatives from nearly 200 countries wrapped up United Nations desertification talks in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on Friday, seeking ways to keep land productive as climate change heats the planet and degraded soils and landscapes lose their ability to hold water, produce food and support livelihoods.

Up to 40% of the world’s land is degraded, according to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, which organizes the biennial talks. Droughts are also emerging in areas that were not considered highly vulnerable a decade ago, said Yasmine Fouad, the convention’s executive secretary.

“Drought is coming coupled with the impact of climate change,” Fouad said in an interview with the Associated Press. “It’s becoming more frequent, more intense and more prolonged."

Countries left Ulaanbaatar without resolving one of the talks' key issues — whether to create a legally binding global drought agreement — postponing a decision until the next round of talks in Egypt in two years. The issue had already been deferred at the previous meeting two years ago.

Drought is often described as a shortage of rain. But specialists at the conference said its severity is increasingly determined by what happens to land before the rain stops.

Healthy soils absorb and store water, helping crops, grasslands and natural ecosystems survive dry periods. Degraded soils shed water more quickly and lose productivity, making communities more vulnerable when temperatures climb or rainfall becomes erratic, according to land experts.

“You cannot maintain healthy soil without managing your water,” Fouad said. “And you cannot say we have sustainable water management without ensuring that your soil and your land is OK.”

The connection between land and water is especially important for agriculture. Joao Campari, global leader for food and agriculture at WWF International, said treating land and water as separate systems overlooks the basic conditions needed for food security.

“If you don’t have water, you don’t have agriculture. If you don’t have land, you don’t have agriculture,” he said.

The pressure on land is expected to grow as demand for food increases. According to U.N. reports, with the world's population growing, the world will need to produce 50% more food than it did in 2012 by 2050. But expanding production by clearing grasslands, savannas or other natural areas can worsen land degradation, releasing carbon from soils and reducing the ability of landscapes to store water.

Land degradation can also worsen sand and dust storms. Fouad said that while the storms are carried through the air, their roots are often on the ground, where unsustainable land use leaves soil exposed. Restoring vegetation and improving land management can help keep soil in place and reduce the amount swept up by strong winds.

The 12-day conference launched a rangelands initiative bringing together $1.2 billion across 45 projects. Fouad said the Asian Development Bank also announced $2 billion for efforts to combat land degradation in the Asia Pacific region.

Rangelands — including grasslands, savannas and other areas used by grazing animals and pastoral communities — cover 54% of the Earth’s land surface and support around 2 billion people, according to the UNCCD.

Campari said grasslands, savannas and rangelands are being converted to other uses at roughly four times the rate of forests. Because they hold large amounts of carbon in their soils, their destruction can release greenhouse gases to the atmosphere even when few trees are being cut down.

“They contain twice the carbon that is in the atmosphere,” Campari said. “So when you clear these spaces to produce food, it means that all this carbon leaves the soil and enters the atmosphere.”

An estimated $355 billion a year is needed through 2030 to meet global land restoration commitments, but current investment is about $77 billion, leaving a gap of $278 billion annually. Private finance accounts for only about 6% of global investment in land restoration, according to U.N. reports.

The challenge is not only raising money but making it available before drought becomes a disaster. More than 70 countries now have national drought plans, up from three in 2013, but climate experts say plans often lack the funding needed to turn early warnings, water management, restoration and agricultural adaptation into action.

Fouad said governments need to move from drought plans to investment plans, bringing private companies, local communities, women and young people into national platforms that can develop projects and attract financing.

A new Drought Resilience Investment Facility, announced earlier this week in Ulaanbaatar, aims to mobilize up to $400 million in public and private capital for projects involving water security, sustainable agriculture, nature-based solutions and land restoration.

For Esther Penunia, secretary general of the Asian Farmers Association, the inability to settle the legal question around drought should not become an excuse for delay.

“We cannot wait for COP18 for solutions," she said. “We know we have solutions and we can do them as long as we have the necessary resources.”

Sibi Arasu can be followed on X at @sibi123. Reach him at sarasu@ap.org.

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FILE - The historic packhorse bridge at Baitings Reservoir near Sowerby Bridge is exposed as water levels drop amid a drought in Sowerby Bridge, England, Aug. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)

FILE - A woman from the Java Indigenous group fishes in the Javae River on Bananal Island in Formoso do Araguaia, Tocantins state, Brazil, May 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)

FILE - A flock of sheep gather in a livestock market in Dakar, Senegal, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu, File)

FILE - Cows drink the remaining water from a small pond in the village of Anndiare, in the Matam region of Senegal, April 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)

FILE - Farmer Henrik Jan ten Cate sifts through his potato field, affected by the drought, in Poortvliet, Netherlands, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday said the U.S. has entered an agreement with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels of the South American country’s oil reserves.

Trump in a social media post announced the agreement he said was negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez.

“The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!” Trump wrote.

The Venezuelan government’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The announcement of the deal comes nearly nine months after the U.S. military at Trump’s direction carried out an operation to capture Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face federal narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges.

Trump faces mounting pressure to address high gas prices as the war in Iran on Friday reached a six-month milestone with no conclusion in sight. The U.S. has tapped its strategic petroleum reserves, which in early August fell below 300 million barrels, down by more than 100 million barrels since the start of 2026.

The U.S.-Israel war against Iran has led to a dramatic slowdown of Gulf oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz, which about 20% of the world petroleum passed through prior to the conflict.

The average price of gas in the U.S. stood at about $4.09 a gallon on Friday, according to AAA. The average price was $3.21 at the same time last year.

Trump in his social media post Friday evening alluded to the Venezuela deal being part of a private partnership. The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the private sector partners involved in the deal, and details on how the arrangement would work were not provided.

Persuading big American oil companies to return the region could face headwinds given and decades of badly damaged infrastructure.

Days after the ouster of Maduro, Trump gathered oil executives at the White House and called on them to rush back into Venezuela. Executives expressed interest in the opportunity but there was also a measure of caution given their past experience in the country.

Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company, said at that moment he saw the country as “un-investable.”

But Trump has insisted that his administration has brought a measure of stability to Venezuela.

He has argued that Venezuela stole U.S. oil when former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s moved decades ago to nationalize hundreds of foreign-owned assets, including those owned by American oil companies.

Rodriguez, in one of her early moves after taking power, signed a law that opens the nation’s oil sector to privatization and reversed a bedrock tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that had ruled the country for more than two decades.

Rubio said on X that the agreement would usher in $100 billion in private investment into Venezuela and lead to lower gas prices in the United States.

“This deal is a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people,” Rubio posted.

Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world, with an estimated 303 billion barrels of crude oil in the ground. That’s about 17% of the world’s supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Unlike other parts of the world, where geologists have to search for untapped oil, the reserves under Venezuela’s soil are largely mapped and known, experts say. But because of dilapidated infrastructure, the country only produces about 1% of the world’s oil.

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Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump waves after arriving off Air Force One, Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)