Even if the agricultural industry perfectly implemented all of today’s emission-reducing practices, greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture would still block the climate goals of the United Nation’s Paris Agreement, a recent study finds.
To limit global temperature increases to 2 degree Celsius, as set forth by the Paris Agreement in December, non-carbon dioxide emissions from the agriculture sector – such as methane and nitrous oxide – need to be reduced by one gigaton per year by 2030, the authors write.
“Without the guidance of a 2°C-based goal in agriculture, much effort will be driven by what is technically or politically feasible, rather than by what is necessary,” the researchers report in a paper published Tuesday in the journal Global Change Biology.