IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/resene/v31y2009i4p299-319.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The opportunity cost of land use and the global potential for greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture and forestry

Author

Listed:
  • Golub, Alla
  • Hertel, Thomas
  • Lee, Huey-Lin
  • Rose, Steven
  • Sohngen, Brent

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of global land management alternatives in determining potential greenhouse gas mitigation by land-based activities in agriculture and forestry. Land-based activities are responsible for over a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet the economics of land-use decisions have not been explicitly modeled in global mitigation studies. In this paper, we develop a new, general equilibrium framework which effectively captures the opportunity costs of land-use decisions in agriculture and forestry, thereby allowing us to analyse competition for heterogeneous land types across and within sectors, as well as input substitution between land and other factors of production. When land-using sectors are confronted with a tax on greenhouse gas emissions, we find significant changes in the global pattern of comparative advantage across sectors, regions, and land types. Globally, we find that forest carbon sequestration is the dominant strategy for GHG emissions mitigation, while agricultural-related mitigation comes predominantly from reduced methane emissions in the ruminant livestock sector, followed by fertilizer and methane emissions from paddy rice. Regionally, agricultural mitigation is a larger share of total land-use emissions abatement in the USA and China, compared to the rest of the world, and, within agriculture, disproportionately from reductions in fertilizer-related emissions. The results also show how analyses that only consider regional mitigation, may bias mitigation potential by ignoring global market interactions. For example, USA-specific analyses likely over-estimate the potential for abatement in agriculture. Finally, we note that this general equilibrium framework provides the research community with a practical methodology for explicit modeling of global land competition and land-based mitigation in comprehensive assessments of greenhouse gas mitigation options.

Suggested Citation

  • Golub, Alla & Hertel, Thomas & Lee, Huey-Lin & Rose, Steven & Sohngen, Brent, 2009. "The opportunity cost of land use and the global potential for greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture and forestry," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 299-319, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:resene:v:31:y:2009:i:4:p:299-319
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0928-7655(09)00022-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. W. Jill Harrison & J. Mark Horridge & K.R. Pearson, 2000. "Decomposing Simulation Results with Respect to Exogenous Shocks," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 15(3), pages 227-249, June.
    2. Keeney, Roman & Thomas Hertel, 2005. "GTAP-AGR : A Framework for Assessing the Implications of Multilateral Changes in Agricultural Policies," GTAP Technical Papers 1869, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University.
    3. Klepper, Gernot & Peterson, Sonja, 2006. "Marginal abatement cost curves in general equilibrium: The influence of world energy prices," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 1-23, January.
    4. Darwin, Roy & Tsigas, Marinos & Lewandrowski, Jan & Raneses, Anton, 1996. "Land use and cover in ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 157-181, June.
    5. Jamie Sanderson & Sardar M. N. Islam, 2007. "Climate Change and Economic Development," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-59012-0, October.
    6. Pushpam Kumar & Uwe A. Schneider, 2008. "Greenhouse gas emission mitigation through agriculture," Working Papers FNU-155, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Feb 2008.
    7. Brent Sohngen & Robert Mendelsohn, 2003. "An Optimal Control Model of Forest Carbon Sequestration," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(2), pages 448-457.
    8. Ianchovichina, Elena & Darwin, Roy & Shoemaker, Robbin, 2001. "Resource use and technological progress in agriculture: a dynamic general equilibrium analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 275-291, August.
    9. Hertel, Thomas, 1997. "Global Trade Analysis: Modeling and applications," GTAP Books, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, number 7685, December.
    10. Schneider, Uwe A. & Kumar, Pushpam, 2008. "Greenhouse Gas Mitigation through Agriculture," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 23(01), pages 1-5.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Edwin Van Der Werf & Sonja Peterson, 2009. "Modeling linkages between climate policy and land use: an overview," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(5), pages 507-517, September.
    2. Hertel, Thomas W. & Tyner, Wallace E. & Birur, Dileep K., 2008. "Biofuels for all? Understanding the Global Impacts of Multinational Mandates," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6526, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Ruslana Rachel PALATNIK, 2008. "Climate Change Assessment and Agriculture in General Equilibrium Models: Alternative Modeling Strategies," EcoMod2008 23800101, EcoMod.
    4. Michetti, Melania & Parrado, Ramiro, 2012. "Improving Land-use modelling within CGE to assess Forest-based Mitigation Potential and Costs," Climate Change and Sustainable Development 122862, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    5. Ludena, Carlos E. & Mejia, Carla, 2012. "Climate Change, Agricultural Productivity and its Impacts on the Food Industry: A General Equilibrium Analysis," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126851, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Keeney, Roman & Beckman, Jayson, 2009. "WTO negotiations on agriculture and the distributional impacts for US rice farm households," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 70-80, February.
    7. McCarl, Bruce A. & Attavanich, Witsanu & Musumba, Mark & Mu, Jianhong E. & Aisabokhae, Ruth, 2011. "Land Use and Climate Change," MPRA Paper 83993, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2014.
    8. Ruslana Palatnik & Roberto Roson, 2012. "Climate change and agriculture in computable general equilibrium models: alternative modeling strategies and data needs," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 112(3), pages 1085-1100, June.
    9. Sulamaa, Pekka & Widgrén, Mika, 2005. "Asian Regionalism versus Global Free Trade: A Simulation Study on Economic Effects," Discussion Papers 985, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    10. Valenzuela, Ernesto & Hertel, Thomas W., 2006. "Poverty Vulnerability and Trade Policy: Are the Likely Impacts Discernable?," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21397, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    11. Hertel, Thomas W. & Keeney, Roman, 2009. "The Poverty Impacts of Global Commodity Trade Liberalization," Agricultural Distortions Working Paper Series 52786, World Bank.
    12. Henseler, Martin & Piot-Lepetit, Isabelle & Ferrari, Emanuele & Mellado, Aida Gonzalez & Banse, Martin & Grethe, Harald & Parisi, Claudia & Hélaine, Sophie, 2013. "On the asynchronous approvals of GM crops: Potential market impacts of a trade disruption of EU soy imports," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 166-176.
    13. Palatnik, Ruslana R. & Kan, Iddo & Rapaport-Rom, Mickey & Ghermandi, Andrea & Eboli, Fabio & Shechter, Mordechai, 2011. "Land transformation analysis and application," Conference papers 332155, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    14. Monge, Juan J. & Bryant, Henry L. & Gan, Jianbang & Richardson, James W., 2016. "Land use and general equilibrium implications of a forest-based carbon sequestration policy in the United States," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 102-120.
    15. Huang, Yong & Elahi, Ehsan & You, Jiansheng & Sheng, Yuhua & Li, Jinwei & Meng, Anchan, 2024. "Land use policy implications of demographic shifts: Analyzing the impact of aging rural populations on agricultural carbon emissions in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    16. Hari Wahyu Wijayanto & Kai-An Lo & Hery Toiba & Moh Shadiqur Rahman, 2022. "Does Agroforestry Adoption Affect Subjective Well-Being? Empirical Evidence from Smallholder Farmers in East Java, Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-10, August.
    17. Zhen, Wei & Qin, Quande & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2017. "Spatio-temporal patterns of energy consumption-related GHG emissions in China's crop production systems," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 274-284.
    18. Jianhong Mu & Anne Wein & Bruce McCarl, 2015. "Land use and management change under climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies: a U.S. case study," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 20(7), pages 1041-1054, October.
    19. Huarui Gong & Jing Li & Zhen Liu & Yitao Zhang & Ruixing Hou & Zhu Ouyang, 2022. "Mitigated Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Cropping Systems by Organic Fertilizer and Tillage Management," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-18, July.
    20. Oliver Lazarus & Sonali McDermid & Jennifer Jacquet, 2021. "The climate responsibilities of industrial meat and dairy producers," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-21, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:resene:v:31:y:2009:i:4:p:299-319. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505569 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.