Agriculture is expected to be the most difficult sector to decarbonise over the coming years, a study by the University of East Anglia (UEA) has found.
The study assessed what different countries think will be their most difficult to decarbonise sectors when they reach net zero, and found that once nations have taken ‘easy’ steps to achieve decarbonisation, such as switching to more renewable electricity, electric cars, and heat pumps for homes, residual emissions are likely to linger in certain sectors.
The sectors that are more challenging to decarbonise include aviation, agriculture, and industry, as they have limited alternatives to fossil fuels, the study found.
Residual emissions are anticipated from these ‘hard-to-abate’ sources, which encounter technical obstacles to further reduction beyond a certain threshold.
Agriculture in particular, mainly related to livestock, is anticipated to be the largest contributor to residual emissions – on average 36% of the total for developed countries.
Net zero targets
“Net zero targets have rapidly become the new norm of national climate policy,” commented lead author Harry Smith, a Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholar at UEA. They imply a need to compensate for the remaining residual emissions through the deployment of carbon dioxide removal methods. Yet governments are only now exploring what this balance could or should be.
“High residual emissions, paired with greater deployment of carbon dioxide removal, may allow countries to retain or expand fossil fuel use and production. Given the limits of carbon dioxide removal, this risks the credibility of their target and may jeopardise global climate goals.
“Similarly, treating residual emissions as an inevitability, risks de-emphasising these emissions, locking-in high emitting activities and infrastructure, and locking-out other ways to reduce emissions.”
The team, comprising researchers from the Schools of Environmental Sciences, Global Development, and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA, examined national climate strategies for 71 countries, with the majority aiming to achieve net zero by 2050.
Different approaches
The study found that certain countries, like the UK and Spain, are ambitious, incorporating scenarios that slash their emissions by more than 90% from their peak levels, resulting in less than 10% residual emissions, which are offset by carbon dioxide removal.
However, other countries, such as Canada, are less ambitious, envisioning scenarios that maintain higher levels of fossil fuel use and production. These scenarios aim to reduce emissions by just over half before offsetting the remainder.
For developed countries, residual emissions are significant, averaging 21% compared to their peak greenhouse gas emissions. However, this average conceals a wide range, with residual emissions ranging from as low as 5% to as high as 52%.
“Our study shows that countries vary greatly in how they envision what getting to net zero means for them,” added co-author Dr Naomi Vaughan. “Some use the reporting of emission and carbon removals together to hide their weaker emissions reduction ambition by betting on currently very niche carbon removal methods. We suggest that strengthening the reporting requirements would improve transparency.”
The study was published in the One Earth journal, and can be found here.
