Annex A
Greenhouse Gases
Sectors/Sources Categories
Agriculture
Other - Land use
11 April 2014, Rome - New FAO (click here) estimates of greenhouse gas data show that emissions from agriculture, forestry and fisheries have nearly doubled over the past fifty years and could increase an additional 30 percent by 2050, without greater efforts to reduce them.
This is the first time that FAO has released its own global estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU),...
...Meanwhile, net GHG emissions due to land use change and deforestation registered a nearly 10 percent decrease over the 2001-2010 period, averaging some 3 billion tonnes CO2 eq/yr over the decade. This was the result of reduced levels of deforestation and increases in the amount of atmospheric carbon being sequestered in many countries.
Averaged over the 2001-2010 period, agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU) emissions break down as follows:
- 5 billion tonnes CO2 eq/yr from crop and livestock production
- 4 billion tonnes CO2 eq/yr due to net forest conversion to other lands (a proxy for deforestation)
- 1 billion tonnes CO2 eq/yr from degraded peatlands
- 0.2 billion tonnes CO2 eq/yr by biomass fires
In addition to these emissions, some two billion tonnes CO2 eq/yr were removed from the atmosphere during the same time frame as a result of carbon sequestration in forest sinks....
...In 2011, 44 percent of agriculture-related GHG outputs occurred in Asia, followed by the Americas (25%), Africa (15%), Europe (12%), and Oceania (4%), according to FAO's data. This regional distribution was fairly constant over the last decade. In 1990 however, Asia's contribution to the global total (38%) was smaller than at present, while Europe's was much larger (21%)....
...These emissions (energy, not agriculture) exceeded 785 million tonnes of CO2 eq. in 2010, having increased by 75 percent since 1990...
