While society increasingly demands emissions abatement from the livestock sector, farmers are concurrently being forced to adapt to an existential climate crisis. Here, we examine how stacking together multiple systems adaptations impacts on the productivity, profitability and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of livestock production systems under future climates underpinned by more frequent extreme weather events. Without adaptation, we reveal that soil carbon sequestration (SCS) in 2050 declined by 45–133%, heralding dire ramifications for CO2 removal aspirations associated with SCS in nationally determined contributions. Across adaptation-mitigation bundles examined, mitigation afforded by SCS from deep-rooted legumes was lowest, followed by mitigation from status quo SCS and woody vegetation, and with the greatest mitigation afforded by adoption of enteric methane inhibitor vaccines. Our results (1) underline a compelling need for innovative, disruptive technologies that dissect the strong, positive coupling between productivity and GHG emissions, (2) enable maintenance or additional sequestration of carbon in vegetation and soils under the hotter and drier conditions expected in future, and (3) illustrate the importance of holistically assessing systems to account for pollution swapping, where mitigation of one type of GHG (e.g., enteric methane) can result in increased emissions of another (e.g., CO2). We conclude that transdisciplinary participatory modelling with stakeholders and appropriate bundling of multiple complementary adaptation-mitigation options can simultaneously benefit production, profit, net emissions and emissions intensity.

Land managers are challenged with balancing priorities for agri-food production, greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement, natural conservation, social and economic license to operate. We co-designed pathways for transitioning farming systems to net-zero emissions under future climates. Few interventions enhanced productivity and profitability while also reducing GHG emissions. Seaweed (Asparagopsis) feed supplement and planting trees enabled the greatest mitigation (67–95%), while enterprise diversification (installation of wind turbines) and improved feed-conversion efficiency (FCE) were most conducive to improved profitability (17–39%). Mitigation efficacy was hampered by adoptability. Serendiptiously, the least socially acceptable option – business as usual and purchasing carbon credits to offset emissions – were also the most costly options. In contrast, stacking synergistic interventions enabling enteric methane mitigation, improved FCE and carbon removals entirely negated net emissions in a profitable way. We conclude that costs of transitioning to net-zero vary widely (-64% to + 30%), depending on whether interventions are stacked and/or elicit productivity co-benefits.