What is the size of the mitigation potential in EU agriculture by 2030?

In my previous post, I discussed the challenges of reducing non-CO2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture and identified some of the strategies that are available or under development to allow farmers to reduce these emissions. But by how much would these strategies reduce projected emissions? What is the potential magnitude of the emissions reduction we should expect from agriculture in the coming decade? As in the previous post, I deliberately exclude a discussion of the potential to offset these emissions through land management and land use change although, as we will see, some insights into the potential to reduce emissions in the LULUCF sector will be covered in this post.

What I do in this post is to summarise the Commission’s quantification of the mitigation potential in agriculture up to 2030 in the context of the ‘Fit for 55’ package to be launched in June 2021. This is expected to propose significant changes in a raft of EU energy and climate laws to achieve the more ambitious at least net 55% emissions reduction target proposed for 2030.… Read the rest

Mitigating agricultural emissions

Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture (almost entirely non-CO2 emissions as defined in IPCC Sector 3) fell slightly in the EU-27 in 2018 but are still above their lowest level in 2012. Net emissions from cropland and grassland reported in the LULUCF sector also appear to have stabilised after some years of decline (EEA GHG Data Viewer). Further, projections of agricultural emissions by Member States, as I reported in this post, indicate that no significant reduction in emissions from agriculture is projected in the period up to 2030 even with additional measures in place.

Agricultural non-CO2 emissions are driven mainly by livestock numbers (particularly ruminants such as cattle and sheep) and nitrogen (N) fertiliser use. The emissions sectors included in the IPCC inventories (with the associated gases shown in brackets) cover 3A. enteric fermentation (CH4); 3B. manure management (CH4, N2O); 3C. rice cultivation (CH4); 3D. direct emissions from managed soils resulting from the application of synthetic fertiliers (N2O), manure applied to soils (N2O), manure applied to pastures (N2O), crop residues (N2O), and the cultivation of organic soils (histosols) (N2O).… Read the rest