Agriculture, and the patterns of land use change that are associated with it, have a high environmental footprint and contribute to climate change, as the sector accounts for about one-quarter of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally. However, improved land management practices can play an important role in mitigating GHG emissions by removing substantial volumes of carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering them in soils and plant tissues. We can't fix what we do not measure, which is why quantifying greenhouse gas emissions is a necessary step for climate-smart agriculture and sustainable land management. Greenhouse gas accounting can provide the numbers and data that are important to decision making in adopting less carbon-intensive practices, guiding low-emissions development, assessing product supply chains, certifying sustainable agriculture practices, and informing consumers on the carbon footprint of their choices. This Quick Guidance on Greenhouse Gas Accounting for Sustainable Land Management provides an overview of SLM activities subject to greenhouse gas appraisal, guidance in the selection of tools, data needs for the application and final use of the greenhouse gas accounting tools It complements the more comprehensive Carbon Accounting Tools for Sustainable Land Management report, and it is targeted at leading resource managers and project developers to proficiency in the independent use of greenhouse gas accounting tools.
Due to more stringent energy and climate policies, it is expected that many traditional chemicals will be replaced by their biomass-based substitutes, bio-chemicals. These innovations, however, can influence land allocation since the demand for land dedicated to specific crops might increase. Moreover, it can have an influence on traditional agricultural production. In this paper, we use an applied general equilibrium framework, in which we include two different bio-refinery processes and incorporate so-called cascading mechanisms. The bio-refinery processes use grass, as one of the major inputs, to produce bio-nylon and propane-diol (1,3PDO) to substitute currently produced fossil fuel-based nylon and ethane-diol. We examine the impact of specific climate policies on the bioelectricity share in total electricity production, land allocation, and production quantities and prices of selected commodities. The novel technologies become competitive, with an increased stringency of climate policies. This switch, however, does not induce a higher share of bioelectricity. The cascade does stimulate the production of bioelectricity, but it induces more of a shift in inputs in the bioelectricity sector (from biomass to the cascaded bio-nylon and 1, 3PDO) than an increase in production level of bioelectricity. We conclude that dedicated biomass crops will remain the main option for bioelectricity production: the contribution of the biomass systems remains limited. Moreover, the bioelectricity sector looses a competition for land for biomass production with bio-refineries.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.