Implementing an appropriate metric for the assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production: A national case study

Hörtenhuber, Stefan; Seiringer, M.; Theurl, Michaela C.; Größbacher, Verena; Piringer, Gerhard; Kral, Iris; Zollitsch, Werner

doi:10.1016/j.animal.2022.100638

Cited by 19 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Similar to reductions scenarios in our study, Ridoutt and coauthors found larger potential GHG reduction benefits from supplementing Australian beef steers with enteric CH 4 -inhibiting macroalgae Asparagopsis taxiformis when emissions were assessed using GWP * rather than GWP (Ridoutt et al, 2022). Similarly to our study, Hörtenhuber and coauthors found that decreasing lactating dairy cattle population due to improved production efficiency resulted in strong sectoral emission reductions from dairy production, which were greater when assessed with GWP * than with GWP 100 (Hörtenhuber et al, 2022). In Australian livestock industries where CH 4 emissions increased from 1990 to 2018 (beef, pork, and dairy production), emissions from the beef cattle, pig meat and milk production industries assessed using GWP * contributed to climate warming less than when assessed with the GWP 100 climate metric (Ridoutt, 2021b).…”

Section: Figuresupporting

confidence: 85%

“…Previous authors have debated GWP * 's applicability to sectoral and national emissions, which will be discussed further here. Nonetheless, previous authors have applied GWP * and other alternative GHG metrics to local agricultural sectors, including Australian beef feedlots (Ridoutt et al, 2022), Australian sheep meat production (Ridoutt, 2021a), Australian livestock production (Ridoutt, 2021b), and Austrian dairy production (Hörtenhuber et al, 2022). Similar to reductions scenarios in our study, Ridoutt and coauthors found larger potential GHG reduction benefits from supplementing Australian beef steers with enteric CH 4 -inhibiting macroalgae Asparagopsis taxiformis when emissions were assessed using GWP * rather than GWP (Ridoutt et al, 2022).…”

Section: Figuresupporting

confidence: 66%

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Methane emissions from California dairies estimated using novel climate metric Global Warming Potential Star show improved agreement with modeled warming dynamics

Pressman¹,

Liu²

2023

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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IntroductionCarbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) are two of the primary greenhouse gases (GHG) responsible for global warming. The “stock gas” CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere even if rates of CO2 emission decline. In contrast, the “flow gas” CH4 has an e-folding time of about 12 years and is removed from the atmosphere in a relatively short period of time. The climate impacts of cumulative pollutants such as CO2 and short-lived climate pollutants (SLCP) such as CH4 are often compared using Global Warming Potential (GWP), a metric that converts non-CO2 GHG into CO2-equivalent emissions. However, GWP has been criticized for overestimating the heating effects of declining SLCP emissions and conversely underestimating the heating impact of increasing SLCP emissions. Accurate quantification of the temperature effects of different CH4 emissions scenarios is particularly important to fully understanding the climate impacts of animal agriculture, whose GHG emissions are dominated by CH4.MethodsA modified GWP metric known as Global Warming Potential Star (GWP*) has been developed to directly quantify the relationship between SLCP emissions and temperature change, which GWP cannot do. In this California dairy sector case study, we contrasted GWP- versus GWP*-based estimates of historical warming dynamics of enteric and manure CH4 from lactating dairy cattle. We predicted future dairy CH4 emissions under business-as-usual and reduction scenarios and modeled the warming effects of these various emission scenarios.ResultsWe found that average CO2 warming equivalent emissions given by GWP* were greater than those given by GWP under increasing annual CH4 emissions rates, but were lower under decreasing CH4 emissions rates. We also found that cumulative CO2 warming equivalent emissions given by GWP* matched modeled warming driven by decreasing CH4 emissions more accurately than those given by GWP.DiscussionThese results suggest that GWP* may provide a more accurate tool for quantifying SLCP emissions in temperature goal and emissions reduction-specific policy contexts.

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Section: Figuresupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Figuresupporting

confidence: 66%

Methane emissions from California dairies estimated using novel climate metric Global Warming Potential Star show improved agreement with modeled warming dynamics

Pressman¹,

Liu²

2023

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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“…Moreover, whereas differences between cumulative CH 4 emissions were in the 9 to 30% range depending on the level of methodological complexity used (also denoted as tier level by IPCC (2019) [ 28 ]), differences between annual emission rates were larger than that for any given year. Finally, Hörtenhuber et al [ 24 ] found a large discrepancy between the climate impact from historical (2005–2019) GHG emissions from Austrian livestock estimated using GWP 100 and GWP* since annual CH 4 emission rates decreased over the period examined.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Retrospective and projected warming-equivalent emissions from global livestock and cattle calculated with an alternative climate metric denoted GWP*

del Prado,

Lindsay,

Tricarico

2023

PLoS ONE

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Limiting warming by the end of the century to 1.5°C compared to pre-Industrial times requires reaching and sustaining net zero global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and declining radiative forcing from non-CO2 greenhouse gas (GHG) sources such as methane (CH4). This implies eliminating CO2 emissions or balancing them with removals while mitigating CH4 emissions to reduce their radiative forcing over time. The global cattle sector (including Buffalo) mainly emits CH4 and N2O and will benefit from understanding the extent and speed of CH4 reductions necessary to align its mitigation ambitions with global temperature goals. This study explores the utility of an alternative usage of global warming potentials (GWP*) in combination with the Transient Climate Response to cumulative carbon Emissions (TCRE) to compare retrospective and projected climate impacts of global livestock emission pathways with other sectors (e.g. fossil fuel and land use change). To illustrate this, we estimated the amount and fraction of total warming attributable to direct CH4 livestock emissions from 1750 to 2019 using existing emissions datasets and projected their contributions to future warming under three historical and three future emission scenarios. These historical and projected estimates were transformed into cumulative CO2 equivalent (GWP100) and warming equivalent (GWP*) emissions that were multiplied by a TCRE coefficient to express induced warming as globally averaged surface temperature change. In general, temperature change estimates from this study are comparable to those obtained from other climate models. Sustained annual reductions in CH4 emissions of 0.32% by the global cattle sector would stabilize their future effect on global temperature while greater reductions would reverse historical past contributions to global warming by the sector in a similar fashion to increasing C sinks. The extent and speed with which CH4 mitigation interventions are introduced by the sector will determine the peak temperature achieved in the path to net-zero GHG.

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“…Hörtenhuber et al ( 2022 ) examined Austria’s greenhouse gas emissions from livestock and the effects of livestock farming on climate for the years 1990 and 2019. It has been shown that CH 4 reduction from livestock reduces total CO 2 emissions by 16% (Hörtenhuber et al 2022 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future prediction of biogas potential and CH4 emission with boosting algorithms: the case of cattle, small ruminant, and poultry manure from Turkey

Pence,

Kumaş,

Cesmeli

et al. 2024

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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Animal waste can be converted into a renewable energy source using biogas technology. This process has an impact on greenhouse gas emissions and is a sustainable source of energy for countries. It can reduce the effects of climate change and protect the planet for future generations. Tier1 and tier2 approaches are commonly used in the literature to calculate emissions factors. With boosting algorithms, this study estimated each animal category’s biogas potential and CH4 emissions (tier1 and tier2 approach) for 2004–2021 in all of Turkey’s provinces. Two different scenarios were created in the study. For scenario-1, the years 2020–2021 were predicted using data from 2004 to 2019, while for scenario-2, the years 2022–2024 were predicted using data from 2004 to 2021. According to the scenario-1 analysis, the eXtreme Gradient Boosting Regressor (XGBR) algorithm was the most successful algorithm with an R2 of 0.9883 for animal-based biogas prediction and 0.9835 and 0.9773 for animal-based CH4 emission predictions (tier1 and tier2 approaches) for the years 2020–2021. When the mean absolute percentage error was evaluated, it was found to be relatively low at 0.46%, 1.07%, and 2.78%, respectively. According to the scenario-2 analysis, the XGBR algorithm predicted the log10 values of the animal-based biogas potential of five major cities in Turkey for the year 2024, with 11.279 for Istanbul, 12.055 for Ankara, 12.309 for Izmir, 11.869 for Bursa, and 12.866 for Antalya. In the estimation of log10 values of CH4 emission, the tier1 approach yielded estimates of 3.080, 3.652, 3.929, 3.411, and 3.321, respectively, while the tier2 approach yielded estimates of 1.810, 2.806, 2.757, 2.552 and 2.122, respectively. Graphical Abstract

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Implementing an appropriate metric for the assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production: A national case study

Cited by 19 publications

References 51 publications

Methane emissions from California dairies estimated using novel climate metric Global Warming Potential Star show improved agreement with modeled warming dynamics

Methane emissions from California dairies estimated using novel climate metric Global Warming Potential Star show improved agreement with modeled warming dynamics

Retrospective and projected warming-equivalent emissions from global livestock and cattle calculated with an alternative climate metric denoted GWP*

Future prediction of biogas potential and CH4 emission with boosting algorithms: the case of cattle, small ruminant, and poultry manure from Turkey

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