Geneva [Switzerland], July 13 (ANI): A recent report by the United Nations' World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has revealed that sand and dust storms, intensified by climate change, are causing serious health and environmental issues, affecting over 330 million people across 150 countries, Al Jazeera reported.

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Saturday marked the International Day of Combating Sand and Dust Storms and its designation of 2025 - 2034 as the UN Decade on Combating Sand and Dust Storms.

'The storms are fast becoming one of the most overlooked yet far-reaching global challenges of our time... They are driven by climate change, land degradation and unsustainable practices,' Assembly President Philemon Yang said as quoted by Al Jazeera.

WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo emphasised that the impact of these storms goes far beyond visibility issues, noting that they significantly affect public health and disrupt agriculture, transportation, and renewable energy sources such as solar power.

As per Al Jazeera, Yang highlighted that airborne particles from sand and dust storms are linked to around seven million premature deaths each year, primarily due to respiratory and heart diseases. These storms can also slash crop yields by up to 25 per cent, worsening hunger and contributing to forced migration.

WMO's representative to the UN, Laura Paterson, also illustrated the scale of the issue by stating that two billion tonnes of dust are released into the atmosphere annually -- a mass equivalent to about 300 Great Pyramids of Giza, Al Jazeera reported.

She noted that over 80 per cent of this dust originates from deserts in North Africa and the Middle East but travels thousands of kilometres, impacting regions far from its source.

Meanwhile, UN Undersecretary-General and Head of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Rola Dashti, said that the economic toll is staggering. In the Middle East and North Africa alone, the annual cost of dealing with sand and dust storms is estimated at USD 150 billion, or about 2.5 per cent of the region's GDP, Al Jazeera reported.

Dashti pointed to the Arab region's particularly harsh spring season, with storms in Iraq overwhelming hospitals and similar events in Kuwait and Iran forcing schools and workplaces to shut down. Dust from the Sahara Desert has even been traced as far as the Caribbean and Florida.

As per Al Jazeera, citing research published in Nature, the US has seen damages from dust and wind erosion reach USD 154 billion in 2017, four times higher than in 1995.

The WMO and World Health Organisation further warned of a growing health crisis: between 2018 and 2022, nearly 3.8 billion people -- close to half of the global population -- were exposed to dust concentrations above WHO safety levels, up from 2.9 billion people between 2003 and 2007. (ANI)