Agriculture and the Abatement of "Record" CO2 Emissions Levels - Pt. 1

Whether one believes in global climate change or not -- and with record flooding, devastating tornadoes, and a spring so wet that most farmers were unable to get into their fields until just recently, it's getting harder and harder to ignore -- one must recognize that any serious environmental policy discussion that takes place from this point on will include some consideration of climate change. A topic that's close to my heart, agriculture's role in climate change mitigation has the potential to be quite significant and is worthy of discussion and debate. This post will be the first in a series that details global climate change and the role that agriculture can play in its mitigation.

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 A few days ago, the International Energy Agency reported that emissions of CO2 have reached record levels. The rate of emissions increases are well above the target rate which would result in a two-degree Celsius average global warming by 2020. Further, per-capita emissions are -- as usual -- highest in the developed countries.


The timing of this news is particularly troubling. While one may expect that rates of CO2 emissions would increase on the heels of the global economic recovery that we have recently been experiencing, the nascent recovery is, by all estimates, quite tepid. The fact that the rate of increase in CO2 emissions is above that which would allow for the attainment of the two-degree-Celsius global warming goal indicates that the goal may be overly ambitious. Further, the coming U.S. election doesn't seem to bode very well for climate-related legislation. Comprehensive climate policies have never been particularly popular -- take, for example, the failure of the Waxman-Markey Bill (H.R. 2454) in the Senate -- but during election years, the prospect for serious action on climate change or even keeping extant policy infrastructure in place is likely to dim significantly. New Jersey just provided an example of this; in addition to cutting all funding for the Office of Climate and Energy, Governor Chris Christie recently chose to pull out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It seems that no one who desires Tea Party votes will go near cap-and-trade or any other climate policy, and President Obama hasn't made climate policy too much of a goal for his administration since the failure of Waxman-Markey.


Broad-based climate policy proposals are likely to be taboo for anyone seriously considering running for political office in the short- or even medium-run. However, as this news clearly demonstrates, it is absolutely critical that innovative policy measures be undertaken in order to aid in the abatement of greenhouse gases (GHGs). While most of the focus has been on stationary sources such as power plants and industry, it's time that agriculture be given the attention it deserves.


Agriculture's role in climate change is well-known. Several studies have examined emissions of GHGs from livestock and the potential for cropland to act as a carbon sink. Various land management practices have the ability to increase agriculture's ability to reduce fluxes of GHGs. No-till farming, the use of cover crops, and reductions in the fertilizer application rate all have the potential to reduce emissions of GHGs to the atmosphere. However, the best part is that each of these practices may have the potential to increase farmer profits upon adoption. No-till reduces the number of passes farmers must make over their fields with fuel- and time-burning tillage equipment. Reducing the fertilizer application rate to economically-optimal levels saves on expensive chemical inputs, and the use of some nitrogen-fixing cover crops can reduce fertilizer nitrogen needs in subsequent cropping seasons. This savings makes some of these practices very popular; in Indiana, 64 percent of land devoted to soybean production and 24 percent of land devoted to corn production was placed under no-till farming in 2009.


Successful climate policy would ensure that agriculture's potential contribution to the abatement of GHGs is effectively integrated into any legislation. This may take the form of offset payments from industrial emitters to farmers, for example. In any case, it's hard to see how we can meet our emissions reductions goals without mass intervention from agriculture.Later, we'll take a more in-depth look at the GHG-reducing practices I mentioned above and discuss their actual potential for use in climate change policy.