Global Agricultural GHG Mitigation under Climate Change

Satisfying growing demands for food, feed, fiber, fuel and carbon sequestration from the land base is expected to become increasingly challenging over the next few decades, especially when considering the impacts of climate change on agricultural productivity. While the magnitude and even the direction of the impacts may vary across crops and regions, global climate change is expected to have substantial impacts on agricultural production throughout the world. In this study, we apply a dynamic global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model focused on the agricultural and bioenergy sectors to explore the potential effects of climate change on the costs and potential quantity of GHG mitigation available from these sectors. First, we explore GHG mitigation potential and costs under a climate policy scenario. We then use data on global agricultural productivity impacts under alternative climate scenarios from the AgMIP and ISI-MIP efforts to define the productivity shocks associated with climate change. The GHG mitigation policy scenario is then rerun in combination with the climate impacts scenario to assess the effects of including potential changes in productivity on the ability of the sector to provide GHG mitigation and its associated cost. Our findings on the implications of alternative climate change scenarios for potential GHG mitigation and cost across global regions can help inform assessments of net GHG mitigation potential across regions under future climate change scenarios.