Advancing agricultural greenhouse gas quantification*

The land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector is a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory sector that covers the emissions of GHGs from and their removal by terrestrial carbon stocks, living biomass, dead organic matter and soil organic carbon according to six main anthropogenic land use categories: Forest land, Cropland, Grassland, Wetlands, Settlements, and Other land. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), all Parties shall periodically report an update inventory of anthropogenic emissions and removals of GHGs using comparable methodologies provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Parties are also required to report and account for such emissions under the Kyoto Protocol (KP). These emission inventories are then factored into an international reduction target commitment. In recent years, international negotiations have resulted in the adoption of new rules for the second commitment period of the KP (CP2: 2013-2020), e.g. mandatory accounting of Forest management. Furthermore, Decision 529/2013/EU goes beyond the international UNFCCC negotiations by adding the mandatory accounting of Cropland management and Grassland management. All these changes pose new challenges that Member States (MS) will need to address from 2015 (i.e. the start of the CP2 reporting period). This report describes the actions undertaken in the context of the JRC’s “LULUCF MRV” (Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification) Administrative Arrangement with DG CLIMA, through a sequence of tasks (described in detail in the Annexes). The aim of the AA is to support MS in improving the quality and comparability of their LULUCF reporting during CP2, in line with IPCC methods and the new UNFCCC and EU rules. .

Climate-smart livestock production at landscape level in Kenya

Searching for solutions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions by agricultural policy decisions — Application of system dynamics modeling for the case of Latvia

GHG emission estimates for road transport in national GHG inventories

Based on the data of China’s agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from previous national GHG inventories, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations database and related literature, this paper systematically analyzes recent trends in China’s total agricultural GHG sources, sinks and emissions intensity from multiple perspectives. The results show that from 2005 to 2021, China’s annual agricultural GHG emissions increased from 859 million to 931 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e), while the net carbon sequestration in agricultural soils grew from 41 MtCO2e to 106 MtCO2e. Specifically, agricultural methane (CH4) emissions accounted for 68%–73% of the total agricultural emissions, higher than agricultural nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. By sector, livestock production contributed 49%–54% toward total agricultural emissions, exceeding emissions of crop production. According to FAO data, the GHG emissions intensity of China’s agricultural sector is lower than that of developed countries and regions. Furthermore, this paper summarizes China’s mitigation potential in feed and livestock production, manure management, fertilizer application, irrigation and tillage practices, as well as challenges faced by China in implementing existing measures and policies for agricultural carbon mitigation and sequestration. Finally, recommendations for future policies and measures are proposed from technological, institutional, and managerial perspectives.

The land-use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector is receiving increasing attention in climate change mitigation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission offsetting. The sector itself and measures applied to mobilize this sector in order to tackle climate change are dominant in nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement as well as in national strategies, as in the case of Lithuania. Lithuania has set the goal of becoming a carbon-neutral country in 2050, reducing GHGs by 80% compared to 1990 and offsetting the remaining 20% through the LULUCF sector. Therefore, this paper aims at analyzing historical land-use changes in 1990–2021, as reported for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, and LULUCF’s potential to achieve climate change mitigation goals, taking into account different land-use change scenarios (business as usual, forest development, forest development + additional measures and forest land 40% + additional measures) for 2030 and 2050 in Lithuania. The scenarios are based on historical and potential future policy-based land-use changes. Projections of GHG emissions/removals for different scenarios are prepared according to the Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (2006) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The results indicate that land-use changes over the period 1990–2021 remained rather stable, with some increases in forest area and grassland at the expense of cropland. The whole LULUCF sector acted as a carbon sink in most cases, forests being a key category for removal. However, reaching climate neutrality in 2050 might be challenging, as the goal to offset 20% of remaining GHG emission compared to 1990 through LULUCF would not be met in any of the scenarios analyzed, even the scenario of maximal forest-area development and additional measures. Considering the high historical GHG-removal fluctuations and the uncertainties of the sector itself, caution should be taken when relying on LULUCF’s potential to reach the set goals.

Climate change: the political situation.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) asserts the Earth’s temperature rose by approximately 0.6C (1F) during the 20th century (Houghton et al., 2001) and projects that temperature will continue to rise projecting an increase of 1.4 to 5.8C by 2100 (McCarthy et al., 2001). The IPCC also asserts that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have been the dominant causal factor (Houghton et al., 2001). In response to these and other findings society is actively considering options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 1992, 165 nations negotiated and signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which sets a long-term goal ‘to stabilize greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous human interference with the climate’. Subsequently, a number of programs or policy directions have been formed that are directed toward achieving emissions reductions including the Kyoto Protocol, and the U.S. Presidential level Clear Skies and Global Climate Change Initiatives (Bush, 2002). Emission reductions can be expensive. In the United States, the majority of emissions come from fossil fuel energy related sources use with about 40% of total GHG emissions coming from each of electricity generation and petroleum usage. A large emissions reduction would require actions such as:

Emissions of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) from agricultural activities currently comprise 10-12% of the world’s total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They are also forecast to rise by 30% above current levels by 2050. At the Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Paris in December 2015, more than 100 countries indicated that they would reduce agricultural GHG emissions as part of the global effort to keep warming to a maximum of 2°C. Emissions from ruminant livestock present a particular challenge as enteric CH4 emissions alone comprise ~40% of total agricultural emissions. Estimating emissions from animal agriculture can be done through simple estimates, generically available data on animal populations and regional-level fixed emission factors per animal. But these estimates are subject to very large uncertainties and their appropriateness for estimating emissions at the country level is questionable. More appropriate country-specific methods can be developed using local data and expert opinion in the first instance, even in the absence of country-specific emission factors. Reducing GHG emissions from ruminant livestock is challenging technically even if livestock production is constant, and is particularly challenging if the sector is increasing in size. Internationally the quantity of GHG produced per unit of product has been declining consistently and for both cattle meat and milk than 50 years ago. This decline is largely due to increased efficiency of production. Increasing efficiency is therefore a key component of agricultural GHG mitigation. Increasing efficiency,while essential, may not be enough on its own. New technologies are therefore needed and for ruminant livestock there are some promising products; compounds that inhibit enteric CH4, vaccines, low emitting sheep have been successfully bred and, a variety of low emitting feeds, and feed additives.

Abstract. While the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) focuses on global estimates for the full set of anthropogenic activities, the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector might be the most diverse and most challenging to cover consistently for all countries of the world. Parties to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are required to provide periodic estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, following the latest approved methodological guidance by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The current study aims to consistently estimate the carbon (C) stock changes from living forest biomass for all countries of the world, in order to complete the LULUCF sector in EDGAR. In order to derive comparable estimates for developing and developed countries, it is crucial to use a single methodology with global applicability. Data for developing countries are generally poor, such that only the Tier 1 methods from either the IPCC Good Practice Guide for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (GPG-LULUCF) 2003 or the IPCC 2006 Guidelines can be applied to these countries. For this purpose, we applied the IPCC Tier 1 method at global level following both IPCC GPG-LULUCF 2003 and IPCC 2006, using spatially coarse activity data (i.e. area, obtained combining two different global forest maps: the Global Land Cover map and the eco-zones subdivision of the Global Ecological Zone (GEZ) map) in combination with the IPCC default C stocks and C stock change factors. Results for the C stock changes were calculated separately for gains, harvest, fires (Global Fire Emissions Database version 3, GFEDv.3) and net deforestation for the years 1990, 2000, 2005 and 2010. At the global level, results obtained with the two sets of IPCC guidance differed by about 40 %, due to different assumptions and default factors. The IPCC Tier 1 method unavoidably introduced high uncertainties due to the "globalization" of parameters. When the results using IPCC 2006 for Annex I Parties are compared to other international datasets such as (UNFCCC, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)) or scientific publications, a significant overestimation of the sink emerges. For developing countries, we conclude that C stock change in forest remaining forest can hardly be estimated with the Tier 1 method especially for calculating the C losses, mainly because wood removal data are not separately available on harvesting or deforestation. Overall, confronting the IPCC GPG-LULUCF 2003 and IPCC 2006 methodologies, we conclude that IPCC 2006 suits best the needs of EDGAR and provide a consistent global picture of C stock changes from living forest biomass independent of country estimates.

Globally, agriculture is directly responsible for 14% of annual greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions and induces an additional 17% through land use change, mostlyin developing countries (Vermeulen et al 2012). Agricultural intensification andexpansion in these regions is expected to catalyze the most significant relativeincreases in agricultural GHG emissions over the next decade (Smith et al 2008,Tilman et al 2011). Farms in the developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa andAsia are predominately managed by smallholders, with 80% of land holdingssmaller than ten hectares (FAO 2012). One can therefore posit that smallholderfarming significantly impacts the GHG balance of these regions today and willcontinue to do so in the near future.However, our understanding of the effect smallholder farming has on theEarth’s climate system is remarkably limited. Data quantifying existing andreduced GHG emissions and removals of smallholder production systems areavailable for only a handful of crops, livestock, and agroecosystems (Herrero et al2008, Verchot et al 2008, Palm et al 2010). For example, fewer than fifteenstudies of nitrous oxide emissions from soils have taken place in sub-SaharanAfrica, leaving the rate of emissions virtually undocumented. Due to a scarcity ofdata on GHG sources and sinks, most developing countries currently quantifyagricultural emissions and reductions using IPCC Tier 1 emissions factors.However, current Tier 1 emissions factors are either calibrated to data primarilyderived from developed countries, where agricultural production conditions aredissimilar to that in which the majority of smallholders operate, or from data thatare sparse or of mixed quality in developing countries (IPCC 2006). For the mostpart, there are insufficient emissions data characterizing smallholder agricultureto evaluate the level of accuracy or inaccuracy of current emissions estimates.Consequentially, there is no reliable information on the agricultural GHG budgetsfor developing economies. This dearth of information constrains the capacity totransition to low-carbon agricultural development, opportunities for smallholdersto capitalize on carbon markets, and the negotiating position of developingcountries in global climate policy discourse.Concerns over the poor state of information, in terms of data availability andrepresentation, have fueled appeals for new approaches to quantifying GHGemissions and removals from smallholder agriculture, for both existing conditionsand mitigation interventions (Berry and Ryan 2013, Olander et al 2013).Considering the dependence of quantification approaches on data and the currentdata deficit for smallholder systems, it is clear that in situ measurements must bea core part of initial and future strategies to improve GHG inventories and

Bridging the data gap: engaging developing country farmers in greenhouse gas accounting

The Ecology of Meat

Gaining Acceptance of Novel Plant Breeding Technologies.

At the UN climate change conference in Paris in November 2015, Norway committed itself to a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. Agriculture accounts for 8% of Norway’s total GHG emissions. If GHGs from drained and cultivated wetland (categorized under land use, land use change and forestry) are included, the share is 13%; this for a sector that accounts for roughly 0.3% of GDP. As is the case in most countries, agriculture is currently exempt from emission reduction measures, including the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (ETS), in which Norway participates. But the country has recently signaled its intention to include agriculture in future emission reduction efforts. Consideration is being given to how best to achieve GHG reductions in the sector. A recent report by the Norwegian Green Tax Commission, established by the government to evaluate policy options for achieving emission reductions, (Government of Norway, 2015) emphasizes the importance of including agriculture. The Commission suggests that agricultural emissions should be taxed at the same rate as for other sectors. It also recommends that reductions in the production and consumption of red meat should be specifically targeted, through cuts in production grants to farmers and the imposition of consumption taxes. Unsurprisingly, this proposed policy shift is extremely controversial and faces resistance, particularly from the farmers’ unions. Farmers argue that the maintenance of domestic agricultural production is crucial for achieving national food security objectives, in addition to pursuing other aims such as the maintenance of economic activity in rural areas and landscape preservation. Food security, which has been a key policy objective since the end of the Second World War, has been interpreted in Norway as requiring high levels of selfsufficiency in basic agricultural commodities. To achieve this, substantial subsidies are provided to farmers and domestic prices of many commodities are kept at high levels by restricting imports. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that the total financial support provided to Norwegian agriculture in 2015 was equivalent to 62% of the value of gross farm receipts, which made Norway (along with Switzerland) a leader in the amount of support provided to agriculture by the 50 OECD member and non-member countries monitored by the Organization (OECD, 2016). In this paper we analyze policy options for achieving a 40% reduction in agricultural GHG emissions, consistent with the economy-wide target, while imposing the restriction that national food production measured in calories should be maintained (the food security target). This is consistent with the way that the Norwegian government identifies the country’s food security objective. In section 2 we outline the current situation with respect to GHG emissions in Norwegian agriculture. In section 3 we illustrate the policy issues involved by considering two product aggregates that are intensive in the use of land for crop production (grainland) and grassland, respectively. The aggregates are based on data for the main commodities in Norwegian agriculture relating to GHG emissions, land use, caloric content, subsidies, and costs per unit of production. We show that even though the opportunity set (i.e., the production combinations that are possible within technical constraints) is narrow, a 40% cut in emissions is achievable by substituting from ruminant products that are intensive in the use of grassland to products based on grainland. We also show that the emissions reduction both reduces government budgetary costs and land use, i.e., ruminant products are characterized by relatively high subsidies and land use. Two-dimensional analysis ignores the fact that per unit emissions from dairy production are low compared to other ruminant products (i.e., beef and sheep production). Both in terms of production value and agricultural employment, dairy farming is the most important component of Norwegian agriculture. Consequently, milk production deserves to be separated from ruminant meat production. Finally in section 4, we present a detailed analysis 3 of policy options derived from a disaggregated model that includes all the major products in Norwegian agriculture. In the model-based analysis, we examine first the imposition of a carbon tax, while maintaining existing agricultural support policies and import protection, and achieving the food security (production of calories) target. Since the imposition of a carbon tax in agriculture presents both technical and political challenges, we then examine an alternative approach of changing the existing structure of agricultural support to approximate the same result. We show that it is possible to change current subsidy rates to mimic the carbon tax and calorie target solution. The explanation for this is that ruminant products not only generate high emissions per produced calorie, but they are also the most highly subsidized products. Meat from ruminants is relatively unimportant in achieving Norway’s food security objective of calorie availability.