Agriculture's contribution to climate change and role in mitigation is distinct from predominantly fossil CO2-emitting sectors
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Agriculture is a significant contributor to anthropogenic global warming, and reducing agricultural emissions—largely methane and nitrous oxide—could play a significant role in climate change mitigation. However, there are important differences between carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), which is a stock pollutant, and methane (CH 4 ), which is predominantly a flow pollutant. These dynamics mean that conventional reporting of aggregated CO 2 -equivalent emission rates is highly ambiguous and does not straightforwardly reflect historical or anticipated contributions to global temperature change. As a result, the roles and responsibilities of different sectors emitting different gases are similarly obscured by the common means of communicating emission reduction scenarios using CO 2 -equivalence. We argue for a shift in how we report agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and think about their mitigation to better reflect the distinct roles of different greenhouse gases. Policy-makers, stakeholders, and society at large should also be reminded that the role of agriculture in climate mitigation is a much broader topic than climate science alone can inform, including considerations of economic and technical feasibility, preferences for food supply and land-use, and notions of fairness and justice. A more nuanced perspective on the impacts of different emissions could aid these conversations.
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The GWP value fails to capture the great increase in temperature response that would follow from an increase in CH4 emissions with an increase in ruminant livestock numbers.
“The GWP value also fails to capture the great increase in temperature response that would follow from an increase in CH 4 emissions with an increase in ruminant livestock numbers (Lynch et al., 2021).”
From Time-dependent climate impact of beef production – can carbon sequestration in soil offset enteric methane emissions? (2022) · cites this paper as Lynch et al., 2021
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Hammar, T., Hansson, P.-A., & Röös, E. (2022) · Journal of Cleaner Production · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.129948 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lynch, J., Cain, M., Frame, D., & Pierrehumbert, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Victoria University of Wellington (NZ)
- Corresponding author
- Lynch, John
- Venue
- Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2021-02-03
- Volume
- 4
- Pages
- 518039-518039
- ISSN
- 2571-581X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7116829
- OpenAlex
- W3127840153
- Cited by
- 414
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 50 · 2025: 86 · 2024: 117 · 2023: 83 · 2022: 57 · 2021: 21
- FWCI
- 37.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- CERES (Cranfield University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Climate change impacts on agriculture
- Keywords
- agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, climate change mitigation, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, CO2 equivalent emissions, emissions reporting, greenhouse gas policy, climate justice, techno-economic feasibility
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