TY - BOOK

T1 - Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Agricultural Production

T2 - Developing and Applying the KPI Identity Framework

AU - Bennetzen, Eskild Hohlmann

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - Global climate change is recognised as one of the major current challenges to humanity. Atthe same time, climate change is human induced and we hold the opportunity to reactaccordingly. While global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to rise, emissions fromagriculture and land-use change (LUC) are levelling out albeit production growth and nowresponsible for ~1/4 of anthropogenic emissions. Yet, while agricultural production needs toincrease further to feed our future demands for food and other agricultural products, we mustfast-track the process towards fewer emissions per produced unit.This dissertation presents results and comprehensions from my PhD study on the basis ofthree papers. The overall aim has been to develop a new identity-based framework, the KPI,to estimate and analyse GHG emissions from agriculture and LUC and apply this on national,regional and global level.The KPI enables combined analyses of changes in total emissions, emissions per area andemissions per product. Also, the KPI can be used to assess how a change in each GHGemission category affects the change in total emissions; thus pointing to where things aregoing well and where things are going less well in relation to what is actually produced. TheKPI framework is scale independent and can be applied at any level from field and farm toglobal agricultural production.Paper I presents the first attempt to develop the KPI identity framework and, as a case study,GHG emissions from Danish crop production from 1992 to 2008 are analysed. We find thatemissions have been reduced by 12%, while yields per unit area have remained constant;mainly due to a 41% reduction in nitrogen fertilizer use.From this initial identity the KPI framework is further advanced to improve the outputmetrics, and livestock production is included to encompass the comprehensive set of GHGemissions from agricultural food production.In paper II global agricultural production and GHG emissions since 1970 are analysed andfuture business-as-usual (BAU) storylines are generated based on past trends in reducedemissions per unit product. We show that agricultural production and GHGs have beensteadily decoupled over recent decades. Emissions peaked in 1991 at ~12 Pg CO2-eq. yr-1 andhave not exceeded this since. Since 1970 GHG emissions per unit product have declined by39% and 44% for crop- and livestock-production, respectively. Only emissions from energyuse have increased more than production. Our projected BAU scenarios suggest thatemissions may be further decoupled by 20 – 55% giving absolute agricultural emissions in therange of 8.2 to 14.5 Pg CO2-eq. yr-1 by 2050; lower than most other suggest from estimatesthat do not allow for decoupling.In Paper III agricultural production and GHG emissions since 1970, are analysed for nineworld regions. Decoupling of emissions from production shows vast regional differences. Ingeneral, the more developed regions show the lowest emissions per unit of agriculturalproduction.Although the calculations used in this research needs further improvements on several issues,the KPI identity-framework poses a significant contribution to how we can improve ourunderstanding of emissions from agricultural production and the provided assessments arevery useful in pointing at critical issues towards reducing our climate footprints. A logicalnext step for developing the concept of identities regarding food production could be tointegrate this production-based framework with identities on consumption and economicdevelopment. It must be a scientific goal to illustrate how we best can provide the food weneed whilst reducing emissions efficiently; knowledge essential for establishingcomprehensive and ambitious climate change policy schemes.

AB - Global climate change is recognised as one of the major current challenges to humanity. Atthe same time, climate change is human induced and we hold the opportunity to reactaccordingly. While global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to rise, emissions fromagriculture and land-use change (LUC) are levelling out albeit production growth and nowresponsible for ~1/4 of anthropogenic emissions. Yet, while agricultural production needs toincrease further to feed our future demands for food and other agricultural products, we mustfast-track the process towards fewer emissions per produced unit.This dissertation presents results and comprehensions from my PhD study on the basis ofthree papers. The overall aim has been to develop a new identity-based framework, the KPI,to estimate and analyse GHG emissions from agriculture and LUC and apply this on national,regional and global level.The KPI enables combined analyses of changes in total emissions, emissions per area andemissions per product. Also, the KPI can be used to assess how a change in each GHGemission category affects the change in total emissions; thus pointing to where things aregoing well and where things are going less well in relation to what is actually produced. TheKPI framework is scale independent and can be applied at any level from field and farm toglobal agricultural production.Paper I presents the first attempt to develop the KPI identity framework and, as a case study,GHG emissions from Danish crop production from 1992 to 2008 are analysed. We find thatemissions have been reduced by 12%, while yields per unit area have remained constant;mainly due to a 41% reduction in nitrogen fertilizer use.From this initial identity the KPI framework is further advanced to improve the outputmetrics, and livestock production is included to encompass the comprehensive set of GHGemissions from agricultural food production.In paper II global agricultural production and GHG emissions since 1970 are analysed andfuture business-as-usual (BAU) storylines are generated based on past trends in reducedemissions per unit product. We show that agricultural production and GHGs have beensteadily decoupled over recent decades. Emissions peaked in 1991 at ~12 Pg CO2-eq. yr-1 andhave not exceeded this since. Since 1970 GHG emissions per unit product have declined by39% and 44% for crop- and livestock-production, respectively. Only emissions from energyuse have increased more than production. Our projected BAU scenarios suggest thatemissions may be further decoupled by 20 – 55% giving absolute agricultural emissions in therange of 8.2 to 14.5 Pg CO2-eq. yr-1 by 2050; lower than most other suggest from estimatesthat do not allow for decoupling.In Paper III agricultural production and GHG emissions since 1970, are analysed for nineworld regions. Decoupling of emissions from production shows vast regional differences. Ingeneral, the more developed regions show the lowest emissions per unit of agriculturalproduction.Although the calculations used in this research needs further improvements on several issues,the KPI identity-framework poses a significant contribution to how we can improve ourunderstanding of emissions from agricultural production and the provided assessments arevery useful in pointing at critical issues towards reducing our climate footprints. A logicalnext step for developing the concept of identities regarding food production could be tointegrate this production-based framework with identities on consumption and economicdevelopment. It must be a scientific goal to illustrate how we best can provide the food weneed whilst reducing emissions efficiently; knowledge essential for establishingcomprehensive and ambitious climate change policy schemes.

UR - https://soeg.kb.dk/permalink/45KBDK_KGL/fbp0ps/alma99122734931805763

M3 - Ph.D. thesis

BT - Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Agricultural Production

PB - Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen

ER -