Marginal abatement cost curves for UK agriculture, forestry, land-use and land-use change sector out to 2022

Abstract

Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, land use, land use change and forestry (ALULUCF) are a significant percentage of UK industrial emissions. The UK Government is committed to ambitious targets for reducing emissions and all significant industrial sources are coming under increasing scrutiny. The task of allocating shares of future reductions falls to the newly appointed Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which needs to consider efficient mitigation potential across a range of sectors. Marginal abatement cost curves are derived for a range of mitigation measures in the agriculture and forestry sectors over a range of adoption scenarios and for the years 2012, 2017 and 2022. The results indicate that in 2022 around 6.36 MtCO 2 e could be abated at negative or zero cost. Further, in same year over 17% of agricultural GHG emissions (7.85MtCO 2 e) could be abated at a cost of less than the 2022 Shadow Price of Carbon (£34tCO 2 e).

Sequestering carbon in soils of agro-ecosystems

“…Such abatement cost curves have been produced for UK (Moran et al, 2008;MacLeod et al, 2010), andUS (McCarl andSchneider, 2001). However, similar data are needed for emerging economies with large agricultural and forestry land areas (e.g., China, India) and developing countries of SSA and elsewhere.…”

Cost-effectiveness analysis of policy instruments for greenhouse gas emission mitigation in the agricultural sector

“…Some studies show that many of the agricultural mitigation options can be implemented in a short span of time and at a relatively low economic cost (Smith et al, 2007;Moran et al, 2008). These abatement measures, therefore, can bridge the time until other options, e.g.…”

Developing carbon budgets for UK agriculture, land-use, land-use change and forestry out to 2022

“…Information on implementation costs was also collected and subsequently augmented by modelling decision-making at the farm scale. A full description of the measures considered can be found in Moran et al (2008). 3…”

“…The costs and benefits were translated into terms that could be entered into the farm scale model to calculate the impact of each measure on farm gross margins. The model and the assumptions underpinning it are described in detail in Section 3 of Moran et al (2008). …”

“…A review of the literature highlighted a vast array of abatement options from the livestock industry (see Annex A5 of Moran et al 2008), which fell into two broad categories of animal management options and manure management. Options were reviewed and ranked on their likely uptake and feasibility over the three time points.…”