Shafaq News/ Kurdistan's Ministry of Planning is set to launch a project to revive uncultivated and uninhabited land and convert it into green spaces, a government official said on Tuesday.

Serwan Mohammad, the head of the Construction Division at the Kurdistan Regional Statistics Bureau, told reporters that the project is a joint initiative between the regional government and UNESCO.

"It will continue until 2030, and it will mainly target lands struck by drought," he said.

Thousands of years ago, the fertile lands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers may have been the site of the Garden of Eden. Today, climate change is making Iraq more inhospitable by the year.

But even as tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue swell the nation's coffers. Political turmoils and corruption left the country little hope for meaningful action on climate adaptation.

Iraq is the fifth most vulnerable country to the impacts of climate change in the world, according to a report last year by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Water resources are growing scarce as supplies dwindle and demand continues to increase. Dams built by neighbors Turkey and Iran mean less water makes its way downstream to Iraq.

At the end of 2021, 20,000 people in Iraq were displaced due to water scarcity, moving from rural areas to urban centers, according to the IOM report.