Reconciling global sustainability targets and local action for food production and climate change mitigation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101983Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Global climate mitigation targets and local agricultural policies must be internally consistent.

  • We project the emission intensity of agriculture at global, regional and national levels.

  • Food production and climate mitigation require systemic changes beyond technological fixes.

  • Cross-scale thinking is needed for the operationalization of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) imply country-led implementation. Yet, their achievement depends on sustainability targets compatible across different sectors and scales. Our study examines how the GHG emission intensity of agriculture (EIA) should evolve globally, regionally (Western Europe) and nationally (The Netherlands) under different socioeconomic pathways, so that two major aims of SDGs 2 and 13 (i.e. sufficient food production and climate change mitigation) are achieved simultaneously. Results show that, by 2050, relative to 2010 values, EIA should decrease at all three levels when measured on a product basis (GHG emissions per ton dry matter) and on a land basis (GHG emissions per ha). This indicates that, globally, agriculture should be intensified per unit area, while in Western Europe and even more so in the Netherlands additional emission reductions require increased production efficiency and lower production volumes. Projected reductions in methane and nitrous oxide emissions from enteric fermentation, manure management and fertilizer application in Dutch agriculture are much higher than what would be achieved through the extrapolation of current trends. Given the high costs of increasing production efficiency further, our analysis indicates the need for significantly more ambitious policy targets and systemic changes, including reduced consumption of animal-sourced food. Besides shedding light on the interaction between climate and agricultural strategies, our analysis illustrates the application of cross-scale thinking in the operationalization of the SDG agenda and underscores the need for concerted action amongst countries.

Introduction

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) launched in 2015 by the United Nations aim at “ending poverty, protecting the planet and ensuring prosperity for all” (UN, 2015). The SDGs were designed according to the principle of country-led implementation, through which local diversity and context-specificities should be considered. At the same time, sustainability actions taken locally must, on aggregate, be consistent with planetary boundaries and global ambitions such as reducing poverty worldwide (Rockström et al., 2009). The pursuit of the SDG agenda thus relies on the simultaneous and integrated achievement of targets at the national, regional and global levels.

Policies to implement the SDGs also need to take account of the interactions between the SDGs. These interactions have been recently highlighted by several studies (Nilsson et al., 2016, van Vuuren et al., 2015, Pradhan et al., 2017). Here, we focus mostly on the interactions between SDGs related to climate change and food systems. Agriculture is directly responsible for around 13% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Stocker et al., 2013) and constitutes the main driver behind land-use emissions. Despite uncertainties as to its exact contribution to climate change mitigation (Wollenberg et al., 2016), the sector is paramount to reach the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement (which imply net zero GHG emissions after 2050), especially given its interaction with land-based mitigation strategies (Popp et al., 2017) and the possible need for negative emissions (Allen et al., 2018). Moreover, there will be a clear need to increase food production globally over the same period in order to feed 9-10 billion people in 2050 (Godfray et al., 2010), despite possibly detrimental impacts of climate change. The future development of agriculture is hugely important for climate security (SDG 13), food security (SDG 2), economic prosperity of rich and poor regions alike (SDG 1) and terrestrial and marine biodiversity (SDGs 14 and 15).

While regional trajectories of agricultural emissions are crucial for climate change mitigation, much uncertainty exists as to the various development pathways that society may undertake. The unpredictability of climate change itself, as well as population dynamics, market fluctuations, trade flows and varying governance levels are some of the factors that compound such uncertainty, ultimately rendering scenario analysis valuable. In the case of global sustainability targets like climate change mitigation, additional complexity arises from the issue of effort-sharing. Defining the level of responsibility of each world region – so that they achieve an emission intensity of agriculture (EIA) compatible with global climate change mitigation targets – involves ethical, historical, economic and development-related factors.

To date, most of the research on SDGs using integrated assessment models (IAMs) has focused on the analysis of potential synergies and trade-offs between SDGs globally (Rao et al., 2016, Obersteiner et al., 2016, van Vuuren et al., 2015). At this scale, IAMs are appropriate tools to account for the long-term interactions between human and natural systems. On the other hand, IAMs’ high level of aggregation in terms of technological, spatial and temporal scales and relatively coarse global databases pose limits to the derivation of local policy recommendations. Several sectoral studies have focused on specific aspects of the SDG agenda at the more local scale such as population dynamics (Abel et al., 2016) and agriculture (Kanter et al., 2016). While most of them propose actions suited to different contexts, also their scalability is disputed since this is done irrespective of the links between regions and sectors. Despite the importance of bringing these efforts together for policy and research, few attempts have been made to check for consistency between results obtained at different scales or to elucidate their interdependence. Concerning agriculture, more specifically, a knowledge gap exists as to whether GHG emission trends observed in different countries are consistent with emission reduction requirements estimated at the regional and global scales (Palazzo et al., 2017, Vervoort et al., 2014).

This study shows what different climate change mitigation pathways entail for agricultural emissions at global and regional levels, and how downscaled country-specific estimates of agricultural emissions compare with current GHG emission trends and perspective for local action. All the pathways imply the production of enough food to feed the world population as well as the achievement of the climate change mitigation targets set forth by the Paris Agreement.

To illustrate the translation of global targets into local action, while also exploring the role of developed countries towards the SDGs, we select the Netherlands as a case study. With intensely managed farms and high per capita levels of animal-based protein consumption, the country plays a key role in the global food system as the second largest exporter of agricultural products and a net importer of feed concentrates (CBS, 2016). As such, it offers insights into the kinds of changes needed for other high-intensity countries to meet global climate change targets. More broadly, the use of a case study allows us to derive lessons relevant to the operationalization of SDGs, which invariably requires the reconciliation of sustainability targets across sectors and scales.

Section snippets

Methods

To analyse what different climate mitigation pathways entail for agricultural emissions at global and regional levels, and how downscaled country-specific projections of agricultural emissions compare with current emission trends, we adopt the GHG Emission Intensity of Agriculture (EIA) as a key performance indicator. EIA is measured for each region both in terms of total agricultural produce (EIADM) and total farmland (EIAHa), as further detailed in Section 2.3. Instead of presenting results

World

Climate change mitigation requires actions in the land and energy systems (Figure S1). In SSP1-2C, a substantial share of the mitigation is achieved through land-related measures, particularly lower methane (CH4) emissions and afforestation. Contrastingly, in SSP2-2C, higher food demand and lower technological improvement lead to increased mitigation efforts from the energy system (Fig. S1) and an overall higher carbon tax (see Discussion and Appendix – Fig. S3). In both SSPs, emission

Discussion

Our results highlight the interdependence of regional EIA trajectories to achieve global SDG targets. The necessary EIA reduction in Western Europe and consequently in the Netherlands is a function of the EIA reduction achieved elsewhere. This accentuates the need for concerted action amongst regions and countries, as well as level playing field in terms of market regulations and production standards.

The need to cut down the GHG emission intensity of agriculture per land unit (EIAHa) is

Conclusion

The agricultural sector is crucial for achieving climate change mitigation targets, especially in the long term, and offers an opportunity to enhance sustainable food production on several fronts besides GHG emissions. By contrasting IAM projections and expert assessment in a concrete case study, we show that the level of mitigation calculated through aggregate models cannot be easily translated into real-world technologies. The example of the Netherlands highlights the difficulties and

Acknowledgements

This study was developed in the context of the research project Targets for Sustainable and Resilient Agriculture – TSARA, funded by the EU Joint Programming Initiative under the FACCE SURPLUS call (project no. 3183600230).

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