The share of agri-food systems in total greenhouse gas emissions. Global, regional and country trends 1990–2017

FAO releases today new estimates of the percentage contribution of agriculture to total GHG emissions. The new FAOSTAT Emissions shares statistics are available at country, regional and global level, over the time series 1990-2017, for carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), and in carbon-dioxide equivalents (CO2eq) . The FAO estimates include information on emissions from non-agriculture sectors from the PRIMAP database. They are a significant component of new food systems emissions estimates published today in Nature Food (Rosenzweig et al., 2020). Agriculture is highly at risk from climate change, requiring urgent adaptation response in coming years to meet global food supply. At the same time, agriculture emits significant amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere, so that mitigation in agriculture features prominently in many country climate change response plans. The largest contributors from agriculture are non-CO2 emissions from crop and livestock activities within the farm gate and carbon losses from land use–mainly due to deforestation and peatland degradation.