Open AccessGreenhouse gas emissions from food systems: building the evidence base
Author(s) -
Francesco N. Tubiello,
Cynthia Rosenzweig,
Giulia Conchedda,
Kevin Karl,
Johannes Gütschow,
Xueyao Pan,
Griffiths Obli-Laryea,
Nathan Wanner,
Sally Yue Qiu,
Julio De Barros,
Alessandro Flammini,
Erik Mencos Contreras,
Leonardo Rocha Souza,
Roberta Quadrelli,
Hörn Halldórudóttir Heiðarsdóttir,
Philippe Benoit,
Matthew Hayek,
David Sandalow
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
environmental research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.37
H-Index - 124
ISSN - 1748-9326
DOI - 10.1088/1748-9326/ac018e
Subject(s) - greenhouse gas , per capita , environmental science , agriculture , agricultural economics , land use , natural resource economics , livestock , food processing , land use, land use change and forestry , food waste , food systems , agricultural land , business , environmental protection , food security , geography , economics , waste management , population , forestry , engineering , ecology , chemistry , demography , food science , archaeology , sociology , biology , civil engineering
New estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the food system were developed at the country level, for the period 1990–2018, integrating data from crop and livestock production, on-farm energy use, land use and land use change, domestic food transport and food waste disposal. With these new country-level components in place, and by adding global and regional estimates of energy use in food supply chains, we estimate that total GHG emissions from the food system were about 16 CO 2 eq yr −1 in 2018, or one-third of the global anthropogenic total. Three quarters of these emissions, 13 Gt CO 2 eq yr −1 , were generated either within the farm gate or in pre- and post-production activities, such as manufacturing, transport, processing, and waste disposal. The remainder was generated through land use change at the conversion boundaries of natural ecosystems to agricultural land. Results further indicate that pre- and post-production emissions were proportionally more important in developed than in developing countries, and that during 1990–2018, land use change emissions decreased while pre- and post-production emissions increased. We also report results on a per capita basis, showing world total food systems per capita emissions decreasing during 1990–2018 from 2.9 to 2.2 t CO 2 eq cap −1 , with per capita emissions in developed countries about twice those in developing countries in 2018. Our findings also highlight that conventional IPCC categories, used by countries to report emissions in the National GHG inventory, systematically underestimate the contribution of the food system to total anthropogenic emissions. We provide a comparative mapping of food system categories and activities in order to better quantify food-related emissions in national reporting and identify mitigation opportunities across the entire food system.