Is European food production climate-smart?
The following section describes the metrics on climate stabilization that were embedded in Deliverable 6.3.
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Performance metric 1: Climate stabilization
‘The societal goal of climate stabilization can be quantified with a single aggregate indicator measuring the “reduction of total GHG emission caused by the agri-food chain”.
Reduction of total GHG emission caused by the agri-food chain
Description: Total GHG emissions are measured as the global warming potential of climate relevant gases in CO2-equivalents for a time horizon of 100 years caused by agricultural supply chains. Carbon equivalent emissions are calculated based on the global warming potentials as defined in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (Ipcc 2007): GWPCH=25; GWPN2O=298. Even though more recent global warming potentials are available from the Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC 2014) (GWPCH4=28; GWPN2O=265), those are not yet used in official national greenhouse gas inventories and results were not comparable with policy targets or reported emission trends.
Policy vision: A stabilization of the climate at a level well below 2 degree Celsius above could imply that the current level of greenhouse gases would need to be reduced thus CO2 re-captured from the atmosphere (Hansen et al. 2008). Possible sinks for CO2 is the land use sector (already today acting as a net sink in Europe, (EEA 2014)), the agriculture sector (Lal 2016), or technical carbon capture and storage, potentially related to bioenergy production. Emissions of CH4 and N2O are natural biogeochemical processes it will be impossible to completely eliminate those emissions. As it is currently not predictable how much carbon sequestration in the agriculture sector will be required beyond the amount required to compensate own GHG emissions, we define thus as policy vision: zero net emissions from food products supply chains by the year 2100.
Policy targets: Policy targets for the whole EU economy are set in the 2020 climate & energy package (European Union 2015), the 2030 climate and energy framework (European Commission 2014), and the roadmap for moving to a low carbon economy in 2050 (European Commission 2011a). These documents however do not give specific targets for the agriculture sector. However, larger emission cuts are foreseen for the sectors covered by the EU Emissions Trading System which should reduce emissions by -43% by 2030, while the so-called ‘non-ETS sectors’ (including road transport, buildings, waste, agriculture and LULUCF) would need to reduce emissions by -30%, according a proposal8 for the revision of the ETS and for an Effort Sharing Regulation for emissions in non-ETS sectors9.
Aggregated variables: The radiative balance of the atmosphere is affected from both the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but also from reflections of solar radiation on surfaces. Ideally, a comprehensive analysis would cover two ‘derived variables’ quantifying total CO2-equivalents emissions caused the supply chain or the agri-food system assessed, and the changes to the energy balance via land use/cover changes or contributions to changes in the water balance (Alkama & Cescatti 2016). Greenhouse gases include the main gases CO2, CH4, and N2O that are emitted from agricultural and energy sources, but also emissions of climate-forcing cooling agents or other substances that might be released in the production chain, which can give a substantial contribution to GHGs of seafood from capture fisheries (Ziegler et al. 2013). In SUSFANS, only the emissions of greenhouse gases will be considered.