2020 FAOSTAT Emissions shares
Rome, February 18 2020. FAO releases today new estimates of the percentage contribution of agriculture to total GHG emissions. The new FAOSTAT Emissions shares statistics are available at country, regional and global level, over the time series 1990-2017, for carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), and in carbon-dioxide equivalents (CO2eq) . The FAO estimates include information on emissions from non-agriculture sectors from the PRIMAP database. They are a significant component of new food systems emissions estimates published today in Nature Food (Rosenzweig et al., 2020). Agriculture is highly at risk from climate change, requiring urgent adaptation response in coming years to meet global food supply. At the same time, agriculture emits significant amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere, so that mitigation in agriculture features prominently in many country climate change response plans. The largest contributors from agriculture are non-CO2 emissions from crop and livestock activities within the farm gate and carbon losses from land use–mainly due to deforestation and peatland degradation. Detailed information on the emissions sub-components are available elsewhere, in the FAOSTAT emissions agriculture and land use domains.
Highlights of FAOSTAT Emissions Shares
Global
• In 2017, world total GHG emissions from all economic sectors totaled 51 billion tonnes CO2eq (Gt CO2eq yr-1), and as much as 56 Gt CO2eq yr-1 including emissions from land use. Emissions from agriculture were 11.1 Gt CO2eq yr-1, composed of 6.1 Gt CO2eq yr-1 from crop and livestock activities within the farm gate and 5.0 Gt CO2eq yr-1 from agricultural land use, largely deforestation and peatland degradation;
• In 2017, the percentage contribution of agriculture to world CO2eq emissions from all human activities was 20%. This included a contribution of 11% from crop and livestock activities within the farm gate, and an additional 9% from related land use (Fig. 1). The largest contributor to world total CO2eq emissions was the energy sector, which emitted two-thirds of the total, due to the burning of fossil fuels for power and energy generation. Industrial processes were instead responsible for 8% of the total;
• The contribution of agriculture is decreasing over time. It was 29% on average in the 1990’s (1990–1999); 25% in the 2000’s (2000–2009); and 20% in the current decade (2010–2017). This decrease is due to two main trends: i) emissions increases from 1990 to 2017 were greater in the energy sector (from 25 to 37 Gt CO2eq) than for the crop and livestock sectors (from 5.2 to 6.1 Gt CO2eq); and ii) emissions from agricultural land use decreased substantially during the same period 1990-2017, from 6.9 to 5.0 Gt CO2eq;
• The contribution of agriculture of CH4 and N2O emissions, expressed in these single gases, was much larger than computed in CO2eq units. It furthermore stemmed almost exclusively from crop and livestock activities within the farm gate. In 2017, agriculture accounted for 42% of total CH4 and 75% of total N2O emissions. Such contribution did not change significantly over time. In the 1990s, it was 47% and 74% for CH4 and N2O, respectively (Fig. 2);
• Agriculture emissions are a major component of food-systems emissions, which move beyond farmer’s fields and related land use activities to include processes in food manufacturing, refrigeration and transport, food supply chains, retail processes, food consumption and disposal of food waste. Food systems were estimated at 21-37% of world total annual CO2eq emissions for 2007–2016 (Rosenzweig et al., 2020), whereas FAOSTAT estimates for the same period a share of 21% from agriculture alone.
Regional
• In 2017, the relative contribution of agriculture to regional total CO2eq emissions from all human activities was the largest in Africa and Latin America, with a share of about 60% (Tab. 1); the share in Asia was about 30%, while it was near 10% --half of the world’s average—in Asia, Europe and North America;
• The large shares in Africa and Latin America were dominated by land use emissions, which in these two regions were larger than those from crop and livestock activities. The latter were nonetheless also significant in Africa and Latin America, as well as in Oceania (above 20%). In Asia, Europe and North America, the contribution of emissions from crop and livestock activities were between 6%-9% and twice those from land use;
• Of the top two regional contributors in 2017, shares of agriculture since the 1990s decreased only slightly Africa, i.e., from 63% to 58% in the current decade; and more markedly in Latin America, from 72% in the 1990s to 57% in the current decade. Furthermore, they decreased strongly in Asia, from 29% in the 1990s to 14% in the current decade as increased the shares from the non-agricultural sectors.
Country
• In 2017, the contribution of agriculture to national total CO2eq emissions was above 90% in six countries, including Chad, Central African Republic, Guyana, Paraguay, South Sudan and Zambia;
• In 2017, emissions from crop and livestock activities within the farm gate were above 50% of national total CO2eq emissions in ten countries, including Eritrea (57%), Mauritania (61%); Central African Republic (64%); Uruguay (68%) and Niger (76%).
[1] Using a global warming potential (GWP), converting methane and nitrous oxide emissions into the equivalent amount of carbon-dioxide emissions having the same climate warming effect. FAOSTAT disseminates emissions in single gases as well as in CO2eq for three different GWPs: SAR, AR4 and AR5.
