The United Nations says desertification or dry land management could be the key to trapping more carbon emissions in the world's soil. Over 2,000 experts and government officials are meeting in Argentina over the next 12 days for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

This is the image most of the world associates with climate change. But the real human danger that should be worrying governments is found in the dry land -- an area that covers about 41 percent of the planet's land surface and is home to a third of the world's population. That's what experts meeting at the United Nations desertification conference in Argentina said on Monday.

Luc Gnacadja, Executive General of UN Convention to Combat Desertification, said, "Climate change we all refer to the polar bears going extinct because of the ice melting, but the human face of climate change is to be seen in the dry lands. And nowadays life is getting more and more difficult and many populations are reaching the adaptation tipping point."

In recent years, scientists have discovered that the best way to combat desertification in dry lands also has huge potential for storing organic carbon.

If farmers don't plough, increase stock rotation and allow land to rest, this can increase the biomass in the soil, making it more fertile and in turn increase the carbon in the soil. And more carbon locked in the soil means less carbon emissions polluting the air.

The Chicago Climate Exchange in the US has been trading soil carbon since 2005. But it is not an official offset under the Kyoto Protocol.

The UN Convention to Combat Desertification hopes to change that.

Experts at the Buenos Aires meeting are hoping to reach a consensus to take to the Copenhagen climate conference in December.

(CCTV September 23, 2009)