CPSC lecture: Coming to scale – greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector and their mitigation

Coming to scale – greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector and their mitigation

Global climate change is driven by increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG), which are due to anthropogenic activities. In this context, people commonly talk about CO2 emissions associated with fossil fuel burning and energy generation, while a few others may mention that producing livestock products or more generally agricultural systems are major anthropogenic GHG sources too. But only a small minority may know that agricultural activities are responsible for 1/3 of all anthropogenic GHG emissions and that agriculture is not only a driver of climate change, but will also be badly hit by on-going changes in environmental conditions.

In his presentation, Klaus will talk about sources of agricultural GHG emissions, focusing on the importance of soils and livestock as sources and sinks of the three main greenhouse gases, laughing gas, carbon dioxide and methane. He will use examples from own past and ongoing research in Europe and low-income countries as examples. Finally, he will look into opportunities which may allow to reduce emissions from the agricultural sector, while adapting agricultural production to climate change. An overarching theme will be the problem of scale, i.e. the challenge to upscale spatio-temporal patterns of GHG fluxes to field, regional and global scales.

Join via Zoom:  https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/j/68274741817 (passcode: CPSC).