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Humpenöder, F., Popp, A., Dietrich, J. P., Klein, D., Lotze-Campen, H., Bonsch, M., et al. (2014). Investigating afforestation and bioenergy CCS as climate change mitigation strategies. Environ. Res. Lett., 9(6), 064029.
Abstract: The land-use sector can contribute to climate change mitigation not only by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but also by increasing carbon uptake from the atmosphere and thereby creating negative CO2 emissions. In this paper, we investigate two land-based climate change mitigation strategies for carbon removal: (1) afforestation and (2) bioenergy in combination with carbon capture and storage technology (bioenergy CCS). In our approach, a global tax on GHG emissions aimed at ambitious climate change mitigation incentivizes land-based mitigation by penalizing positive and rewarding negative CO2 emissions from the land-use system. We analyze afforestation and bioenergy CCS as standalone and combined mitigation strategies. We find that afforestation is a cost-efficient strategy for carbon removal at relatively low carbon prices, while bioenergy CCS becomes competitive only at higher prices. According to our results, cumulative carbon removal due to afforestation and bioenergy CCS is similar at the end of 21st century (600-700 GtCO(2)), while land-demand for afforestation is much higher compared to bioenergy CCS. In the combined setting, we identify competition for land, but the impact on the mitigation potential (1000 GtCO(2)) is partially alleviated by productivity increases in the agricultural sector. Moreover, our results indicate that early-century afforestation presumably will not negatively impact carbon removal due to bioenergy CCS in the second half of the 21st century. A sensitivity analysis shows that land-based mitigation is very sensitive to different levels of GHG taxes. Besides that, the mitigation potential of bioenergy CCS highly depends on the development of future bioenergy yields and the availability of geological carbon storage, while for afforestation projects the length of the crediting period is crucial.
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Lehtonen, H. S., & Irz, X. (2013). Impacts of reducing red meat consumption on agricultural production in Finland. Agriculture and Food Science, 22(3), 356–370.
Abstract: This paper summarises the simulated effects on Finnish agrcultural production and trade of a 20% decrease in Finnish demand for red meat (beef, pork, lamb). According to our results, reduced red meat consumption would be offset by increased consumption of poultry meat, eggs, dairy products and fish, as well as small increases in consumption of fruits and vegetables, peas, nuts, cereal products and sweets. By including the derived demand changes in an agricultural sector model, we show that livestock production in Finland, incentivised by national production-linked payments for milk and bovine animals, would decrease by much less than 20% due to the complex nature of agricultural production and trade. Overall, assuming unchanged consumer preferences and agricultural policy, a 20% reduction in red meat consumption is not likely to lead to a substantial decrease in livestock production or changed land use, or greenhouse gas emissions, from Finnish agriculture.
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Kyle, P., Müller, C., Calvin, K., & Thomson, A. (2014). Meeting the radiative forcing targets of the representative concentration pathways in a world with agricultural climate impacts. Earth’s Future, 2, 83–98.
Abstract: This study assesses how climate impacts on agriculture may change the evolution of the agricultural and energy systems in meeting the end-of-century radiative forcing targets of the representative concentration pathways (RCPs). We build on the recently completed Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP) exercise that has produced global gridded estimates of future crop yields for major agricultural crops using climate model projections of the RCPs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). For this study we use the bias-corrected outputs of the HadGEM2-ES climate model as inputs to the LPJmL crop growth model, and the outputs of LPJmL to modify inputs to the GCAM integrated assessment model. Our results indicate that agricultural climate impacts generally lead to an increase in global cropland, as compared with corresponding emissions scenarios that do not consider climate impacts on agricultural productivity. This is driven mostly by negative impacts on wheat, rice, other grains, and oil crops. Still, including agricultural climate impacts does not significantly increase the costs or change the technological strategies of global, whole-system emissions mitigation. In fact, to meet the most aggressive climate change mitigation target (2.6W/m(2) in 2100), the net mitigation costs are slightly lower when agricultural climate impacts are considered. Key contributing factors to these results are (a) low levels of climate change in the low-forcing scenarios, (b) adaptation to climate impacts simulated in GCAM through inter-regional shifting in the production of agricultural goods, and (c) positive average climate impacts on bioenergy crop yields.
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Popp, A., Calvin, K., Fujimori, S., Havlik, P., Humpenöder, F., Stehfest, E., et al. (2017). Land-use futures in the shared socio-economic pathways. Glob. Environ. Change, 42, 331–345.
Abstract: • Narratives for the Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs) focusing on the land sector are presented. • Integrated Assessment Models have been applied for the SSPs to assess potential future developments for land use, greenhouse gas emissions, food provision and prices. • Model results reflect the general storylines of the SSPs and indicate a broad range of potential land-use futures. • SSP-based land use pathways aim at supporting future climate research, climate impact analysis, biodiversity research and sustainability science. Abstract In the future, the land system will be facing new intersecting challenges. While food demand, especially for resource-intensive livestock based commodities, is expected to increase, the terrestrial system has large potentials for climate change mitigation through improved agricultural management, providing biomass for bioenergy, and conserving or even enhancing carbon stocks of ecosystems. However, uncertainties in future socio-economic land use drivers may result in very different land-use dynamics and consequences for land-based ecosystem services. This is the first study with a systematic interpretation of the Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs) in terms of possible land-use changes and their consequences for the agricultural system, food provision and prices as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, five alternative Integrated Assessment Models with distinctive land-use modules have been used for the translation of the SSP narratives into quantitative projections. The model results reflect the general storylines of the SSPs and indicate a broad range of potential land-use futures with global agricultural land of 4900 mio ha in 2005 decreasing by 743 mio ha until 2100 at the lower (SSP1) and increasing by 1080 mio ha (SSP3) at the upper end. Greenhouse gas emissions from land use and land use change, as a direct outcome of these diverse land-use dynamics, and agricultural production systems differ strongly across SSPs (e.g. cumulative land use change emissions between 2005 and 2100 range from −54 to 402 Gt CO2). The inclusion of land-based mitigation efforts, particularly those in the most ambitious mitigation scenarios, further broadens the range of potential land futures and can strongly affect greenhouse gas dynamics and food prices. In general, it can be concluded that low demand for agricultural commodities, rapid growth in agricultural productivity and globalized trade, all most pronounced in a SSP1 world, have the potential to enhance the extent of natural ecosystems, lead to lowest greenhouse gas emissions from the land system and decrease food prices over time. The SSP-based land use pathways presented in this paper aim at supporting future climate research and provide the basis for further regional integrated assessments, biodiversity research and climate impact analysis.
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