Cut meat consumption in half to curb emissions

Newswise via Woods Hole Research Center: Meat consumption in the developed world needs to be cut by 50 percent per person by 2050, and emissions in all sectors – industrial and agricultural – need to be reduced by 50 percent if we are to meet the most aggressive strategy, set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to reduce the most potent of greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide (N2O).

The findings are results of a study by Dr. Eric Davidson and are published today in IOP Publishing’s Environmental Research Letters. Dr. Davidson, who is President and a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hold Research Center in Massachusetts, demonstrates the magnitude of changes needed to stabilize N2O concentrations in the atmosphere.

N2O is the third highest contributor to climate change behind carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4); however, it poses a greater challenge for mitigation since nitrogen is an essential element for food production. It is also the most potent of these three greenhouse gases, as it is a much better absorber of infrared radiation. But total anthropogenic emissions are about 6 million metric tons of nitrogen as N2O, compared to 10 billion metric tons of carbon as CO2.

The main sources of N2O in the atmosphere are due to the spreading of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers onto agricultural soils and the use and storage of livestock manure. The nitrogen contained in fertilizers and manure is broken down by microbes that live in the soil and released into the atmosphere as N2O. In order to reduce emissions, it will be necessary to apply certain changes to the food production process.

Dr. Davidson believes that this can be achieved through improved management of fertilizer and manure sources, as well as through reduction of the developed world’s per capita meat consumption that will relieve pressure on fertilizer demand and reduce growth in the amount of manure being produced. “We have the technical know-how and the tools to greatly improve efficiencies of fertilizer use in agriculture,” states Davidson, “although several economic and political impediments often stand in the way of their adoption.”....

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