Greenhouse gas taxes on animal food products: rationale, tax scheme and climate mitigation effects

Better information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigation potential in the agricultural sector is necessary to manage these emissions and identify responses that are consistent with the food security and economic development priorities of countries. Critical activity data (what crops or livestock are managed in what way) are poor or lacking for many agricultural systems, especially in developing countries. In addition, the currently available methods for quantifying emissions and mitigation are often too expensive or complex or not sufficiently user friendly for widespread use.The purpose of this focus issue is to capture the state of the art in quantifying greenhouse gases from agricultural systems, with the goal of better understanding our current capabilities and near-term potential for improvement, with particular attention to quantification issues relevant to smallholders in developing countries. This work is timely in light of international discussions and negotiations around how agriculture should be included in efforts to reduce and adapt to climate change impacts, and considering that significant climate financing to developing countries in post-2012 agreements may be linked to their increased ability to identify and report GHG emissions (Murphy et al 2010, CCAFS 2011, FAO 2011).

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture contribute to climate change. The consequences of unsustainable agricultural activity are polluted water, soil, air, and food. The agricultural sector has become one of the major contributors to global GHG emissions and is the world’s second largest emitter after the energy sector, which includes emissions from power generation and transport. Latvian and Lithuanian agriculture generates about one fifth of GHG emissions, while Estonia generates only about one tenth of the country’s GHG emissions. This paper investigates the GHG trends in agriculture from 1995 to 2019 and the driving forces of changes in GHG emissions from the agricultural sectors in the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), which are helpful for formulating effective carbon reduction policies and strategies. The impact factors have on GHG emissions was analysed by using the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) method based on Kaya identity. The aim of this study is to assess the dynamics of GHG emissions in agriculture and to identify the factors that have had the greatest impact on emissions. The analysis of the research data showed that in all three Baltic States GHG emissions from agriculture from 1995 to 2001–2002 decreased but later exceeded the level of 1995 (except for Lithuania). The analysis of the research data also revealed that the pollution caused by animal husbandry activities decreased. GHG intensity declined by 2–3% annually, but the structure of agriculture remained relatively stable. The decomposition of GHG emissions in agriculture showed very large temporary changes in the analysed factors and the agriculture of the Baltic States. GHG emissions are mainly increased by pollution due to the growing economy of the sector, and their decrease is mainly influenced by two factors—the decrease in the number of people employed in the agriculture sector and the decreasing intensity of GHGs in agriculture. The dependence of the result on the factors used for the decomposition analysis was investigated by the method of multivariate regression analysis. Regression analysis showed that the highest coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.93) was obtained for Estonian data and the lowest (R2 = 0.54) for Lithuanian data. In the case of Estonia, all factors were statistically significant; in the case of Latvia and Lithuania, one of the factors was statistically insignificant. The identified GHG emission factors allowed us to submit our insights for the reduction of emissions in the agriculture of the Baltic States.

Energy-related GHG emission in agriculture of the European countries: An application of the Generalized Divisia Index

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

To achieve the goal of "carbon peak and neutrality," the strict requirements for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions control in the agricultural sector were recommended in relevant plans for Beijing during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. Through collecting agricultural activity data and calculating and screening the emission factors, the amount and emission characteristics of agricultural GHG emissions in Beijing in 2020 were estimated and set as the baseline condition. On this basis, the GHG emissions in 2025 with optimized measurements implemented, which were selected in combination with the natural conditions and planting-breeding mode of Beijing, were set as the reduction condition. The emission reduction potential and its distribution during the 14th Five-Year Plan Period were predicted simultaneously. Meanwhile, the reduction effects on the GHG emissions of optimized measurements were evaluated. In addition, relevant policy recommendations on GHG reduction were proposed accordingly. The results revealed that the total agricultural GHG emissions in Beijing were estimated to be 456000 t (CO2-eq) in 2020, primarily from sources of animal intestinal fermentation and manure management, with contribution rates of 50.7% and 26.7%, respectively. Spatially, it was mainly distributed in districts with large livestock and poultry breeding scales, such as Shunyi District, Miyun District, and Yanqing District, etc. It was predicted that in 2025, the total agricultural GHG emissions would be 349000 t (CO2-eq), and the emission reduction potential in the 14th Five-Year Plan period would be 107000 t (CO2-eq). Animal intestinal fermentation would be the emission source with the largest reduction potential (60000 tons, CO2-eq), followed by the emission source of animal manure management (37000 tons, CO2-eq). Adjusting fodder composition and optimizing manure management were analyzed to be the most effective optimized measurements for agricultural GHG emission reduction. Moreover, the emission reduction potential of CH4 would be greater than that of N2O. The emission reduction potential would be mainly distributed in Miyun District, Shunyi District, Yanqing District, Fangshan District, Tongzhou District, and other suburbs with large livestock and poultry breeding scales, accounting for more than 10% of the total emission reduction potential for each. These regions with large emission reduction potential should be prioritized and then the assessments should be extended to the whole city. The measurements were recommended as follows:① the research and promotion of technologies such as fodder optimization and the efficient treatment of manure should be strengthened, ② the scope of the combination of planting and breeding model should be expanded to promote the development of circular agriculture, and ③ relevant standards, guidelines, and specifications for green and low-carbon agriculture should be formulated, and the regulatory and policy system for synergy reduction of agricultural pollution and GHG should be developed.

The vast majority of the scientific community believe that anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are the predominant cause of climate change. One of the GHG emission sources is agriculture. Following the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines regarding GHG emission calculation, agriculture is responsible for around 10% of the overall global emissions. Agricultural GHG emissions consist of several emission source categories and several GHGs. In this article were described the results of multivariate statistical analyses performed on data gathered during the period 1990–2017 from the inventories of 43 Annex I countries (parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, listed in Annex I of the Convention). Trends in the agricultural GHG emissions were analyzed. Generally, the global agricultural GHG emissions are increasing, while the emissions from Annex I countries are decreasing. Apart from the application of urea, emissions from all other sources, such as enteric fermentation, manure management, rice cultivation, agricultural soils, field burning of agricultural residues, and liming are decreasing. Based on multivariate analysis, the most different countries, in terms of GHG emission sources composition in agriculture and emission trends, are Australia, Japan, New Zealand and USA. The rest of the Annex I countries are mostly from Europe and their shares and trends are similar, with slight differences between countries depending, among others, on the date of joining the European Union.

The increase of agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has become a significant issue for China, affecting the achievement of its Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement. Expansion of the large-scale multiple cropping system as a consequence of climate warming could be a major driving force of this increase. In this study, life cycle assessment was employed to identify agricultural GHG emissions due to the expansion of the multiple cropping system in the North China Plain and neighboring regions. We found that agricultural greenhouse gas emissions have increased from 41.34 to 120.87 Tg CO2-eq/yr over the past 30 years, and the expansion of the multiple cropping system has contributed to 13.89% of this increment. Furthermore, the increases in straw handling and agricultural inputs which are related to multiple cropping systems have also played an important role. Results of our study demonstrate that the expansion of the multiple cropping system contributes considerably to increases in agricultural GHG emissions in the North China Plain and neighboring regions. Therefore, it can be concluded that the sustained northward expansion of the multiple cropping system will further elevate agricultural GHG emissions in China, and this should be considered while formulating policies to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture.

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.

Land–water–energy nexus in agricultural management for greenhouse gas mitigation

Nexus of embodied land use and greenhouse gas emissions in global agricultural trade: A quasi-input–output analysis

To achieve energy conservation and the reduction of agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the Ministry of Agriculture of the People’s Republic of China in 2015 made Zhejiang Province the first national low-carbon and circular agriculture pilot province. Specialized policies were conducted in Zhejiang Province for reducing agricultural GHG emissions. In this study, we collected the GHG emission sources data of each city in Hubei and Zhejiang Provinces and calculated the estimated agricultural GHG emission of each city from 2011 to 2020 by using the recommended method from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Following this, we evaluated the impact of the pilot policies on the agricultural GHG emission in the treatment province, Zhejiang, by implementing the difference-in-differences (DID) analysis. The empirical results showed that after considering variables such as income level, rural employment, and average power of agricultural machinery, the agricultural GHG emissions in Zhejiang Province decreased significantly after 2015, compared with Hubei Province, driven by the low-carbon and circular agriculture pilot policies. Furthermore, agricultural GHG emissions can be effectively reduced by increasing national financial investment and administrative orders; however, excessive administrative orders and forced transformation of the agricultural system are likely to harm farmers’ interests in the process of policy implementation.

Agricultural materials input (fertilizer and pesticide, etc.), together with straw burning, rice planting, and livestock breeding, constitute the sources of agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, most related studies have discussed the total amount of agricultural GHG emissions or the role of straw burning and rice planting in agricultural GHG emissions and few studies on agricultural GHG emissions from Agricultural materials. Based on the data of 31 provinces in China from 2003 to 2018, this paper explored the evolution process of agricultural GHG emissions from Agricultural materials. Our research turned up some interesting findings. For example, firstly, Agricultural materials play an increasingly important role in agricultural GHG emissions. Agricultural GHG emissions due to Agricultural materials account for an increasing proportion of the total agricultural GHG emissions. Secondly, there are regional differences in the evolution trend of agricultural GHG emissions caused by agricultural materials. Especially after the urbanization rate broke through the critical line of 50% around 2010 in China.

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.

This monograph is concerned with different aspects of green house gas (GHG) emissions in agriculture. The first part summarizes the total amount of GHG emissions and analyses them regarding their composition. A differentiation is made between the emissions which are already linked to agriculture (source group agriculture: digestion , manure-management and agricultural soils ) within the National Report on GHG Emissions and those which can be counted primarily in addition to agriculture ( energy and land use and land use change ). Depending on which database is used, agriculture is participating in emitting green house gases with 6.3% or 11.1% of total German GHG emissions in 2004. This means that agriculture is an important polluter. The development of GHG emissions in agriculture compared to the year 1990 is -18.5% for the source group agriculture. This means that the source group has reduced more emissions than the average (-17.5%) over all domains published within the National Report. Regarding the sources energy and land use and land use change in addition emission reduction is -16.4% in the same period and thus worse than the average. Moreover, realized emission reductions are predominantly based on structural changes, less on systematical measures. This fact raises the question how agriculture can make a contribution to the reduction of GHG emissions in future particularly with regard to higher aims in climate politics.For this reason the second part of the monograph identifies capacities for the reduction of GHG emissions by using available agricultural biomass for energetic purposes. Due to the heterogeneity of biomass and the variety of its possible products, a lot of technical processes concerning the conversion of biomass into energy exist in practice. Since all of them have different emission factors the derivation of realistic reduction capacities is a nontrivial problem. This work restricts the problem by combining existing biomass with those technologies which provide largest benefit concerning the reduction of GHG emissions. Thereby it is possible to evaluate the maximum contribution of GHG reductions from biomass usage in agriculture in Germany, which aggregates up to 50,341 Gg CO2-equivalent. This means that 78.3% of the emissions from the source group agriculture in 2004 could be compensated if biomass was used within those technologies which produce the largest benefit. In this regards the subsidy of energy crops in biogas plants based on the Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz (renewable energy law) in Germany should be reviewed because there they do not produce the largest benefit. Energy crops should be applied to replace solid fuels instead. Since in practice several biogas plants are already using energy crops as input material without having an option for alternatives, the question raises how this fact can be improved for the future regarding climate protection.Therefore the third part of this monograph analyses the possible emission reductions of different technologies for converting biogas into energy. Objects of investigation are existing technologies like block heat and power plants or direct gas feeding into public gas distribution system as well as future technologies like the application of biogas in different types of fuel cells. Although direct gas feeding has a better ratio concerning the conversion of primary to secondary energy the GHG reduction capacity is much less compared to technologies of cogeneration. The reason for this is that the production of electricity has much more effect on GHG emissions than the production of heat. This is to be seen when comparing the emission factors of certain reference systems used in this part like condensing boilers running with natural gas (253 gCO2/kWhheat), gas steam power plants (432 gCO2/kWhel) and the average emissions factor of German power production (653 gCO2/kWhel). The more electricity is produced by a conversion technology based on biogas, the higher is its GHG reduction capacity. Direct gas feeding is not the most efficient way of using biogas in matters of climate protection considering that only 13% of the natural gas in Germany is used for electric purposes and considering that replacing natural gas by biogas means that the part of fossil fuels with lowest emissions is replaced. Direct gas feeding is not even then the most efficient way of using biogas if there is a consumer at the other end of the public gas distribution system who theoretically uses the injected biogas for running cogeneration systems. The conditioning of biogas in order to feed public distribution combined with additional heat source for running the fermenter of the biogas plant is worse for efficiency. Considering ecological standpoints local heat and power production next to the fermenter is the most efficient way of using biogas in matters of climate protection. This can only be improved by using more efficient systems like fuel cells instead of existing block heat and power plants.

Exploring the nexus between agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions in BIMSTEC region: The role of renewable energy and human capital as moderators