The review highlights the significant untapped potential for climate change mitigation and adaptation associated with improved management of grazing lands in pastoral systems and rangelands. Grasslands and rangelands deserve greater attention, not only for their large extent, widespread degradation and limited resilience to drought and desertification, but also for their potential capacity to sequester and store carbon in soils. Degradation of the land base negatively affects the accumulation of carbon in the soils. Thus, reversing land degradation in extensive dryland areas through improved pasture and rangeland management would contribute to restoring the soil carbon sink while also improving livelihoods of pastoral and agropastoral peoples. The review also highlights the multiple benefits of enhancing ecosystem services and processes for improving livelihoods while contributing to adaptation to climate change impacts. Realizing this potential will require increased awareness and coordinated global efforts alongside interventions that address associated socio-political and economic barriers, such as land tenure constraints and inadequate services for, and political marginalization of, pastoral and agropastoral communities. The opportunity to support climate change mitigation in drylands that will simultaneously contribute to climate change adaptation and reduced vulnerability of pastoral societies should be a key area of focus in post-Kyoto mechanisms.