Emissions of greenhouse gases from energy use in agriculture, forestry and fisheries: 1970-2019

Fossil-fuel-based energy use in agriculture leads to CO2 and non-CO2 emissions. We focus on emissions generated within the farm gate and from fisheries, providing information relative to the period 1970-2019, for both energy use, as input activity data and the associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Country-level information is generated from United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and International Energy Agency (IEA) data on energy in agriculture (including forestry and fisheries), relative to use of gas/diesel oil, motor gasoline, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, fuel oil and coal. Electricity used within the farm gate is also quantified, while recognizing that the associated emissions are generated elsewhere. We find that, in 2019, annual emissions from energy use in agriculture were about 523 million tonnes (MtCO(2)eq yr(-1)), while when including electricity they were 1029 MtCO(2)eq yr(-1), having increased 7% from 1990. The largest emission increase from on-farm fuel combustion was from LPG (32 %), whereas significant decreases were observed for coal (-55 %), natural gas (-50 %), motor gasoline (-42 %) and fuel oil (-37 %). Conversely, the use of electricity and the associated indirect emissions increased 3-fold over the 1990-2019 period, thus becoming the largest emission source from energy use in agriculture since 2005. Overall, the global trends were a result of counterbalancing effects: marked decreases in developed countries in 2019 compared to 1990 (-273 MtCO(2)eq yr(-1)) were masked by slightly larger increases in developing and emerging economies (+339 MtCO(2)eq yr(-1)). The information used in this work is available as open data at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5153241 (Tubiello and Pan, 2021). The relevant Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database (FAOSTAT) (FAO, 2021b) on emissions is maintained and updated annually by FAO.

Automated summary

Fossil-fuel-based energy use in agriculture leads to emissions of CO2 and non-CO2 gases. This study focuses on emissions generated within the farm gate and from fisheries, providing data on energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions from 1970 to 2019. The results show that annual emissions from energy use in agriculture reached 523 million tonnes (MtCO2eq yr(-1)) in 2019, and when including electricity, they were 1029 MtCO2eq yr(-1), with a 7% increase since 1990. The use of electricity and indirect emissions has become the largest source of emissions from energy use in agriculture since 2005.