UN warns of 70 per cent desertification by 2025

Drought could parch close to 70 per cent of the planet's soil by 2025 unless countries implement policies to slow desertification, a senior UN official has warned.

"If we cannot find a solution to this problem... in 2025, close to 70 per cent could be affected," said Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

Drought currently affects at least 41 per cent of the planet and environmental degradation has caused it to spike by 15 to 25 per cent since 1990, according to a global climate report.

"There will not be global security without food security" in dry regions, Mr Gnacadja said during the ninth UN conference on the convention in the Argentine capital.

"A green deal is necessary" for developing countries working to combat drought, he stressed.

The next meeting on the convention is scheduled to take place in South Korea in 2010.