GHG from the agricultural sector in the EU-27

What is it about?

The agricultural sector is the second contributor to the worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), as it is responsible for 13.5% of GHG emissions. The main aim of this research is to track GHG emission from the agricultural sector in the EU-27 between 1990 and 2016 in order to determine trends and changes of emission on a country scale. To achieve the study goal, data were collected from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) website, followed by the application of the Simple Linear Regression Model (SLRM). The obtained results showed that most of the EU-27 countries witnessed a significant reduction of GHG emissions from the agricultural sector, except for Iceland and Spain. Interestingly, the highest reduction conducted by the United Kingdom was followed by Germany and France, where the reduction reached 385.27; 226.72 and 294.92 tons of CO2-equivalent per year, respectively. Thus, we can conclude that most EU countries significantly reduced GHG emissions to the atmosphere.

Featured Image

Photo by Diana Parkhouse on Unsplash

Photo by Diana Parkhouse on Unsplash

Why is it important?

In this research, we track the contribution of the agricultural sector to GHG emission in the EU-27 countries. The obtained results showed that most countries applied policies to reduce the GHG emission. As a result, most countries showed a significant reduction between 1990 and 2016. In addition, more specific and detailed studies shall be conducted in the future to measure GHGs from different agricultural subsectors such as livestock production, crop production and soil ecosystem, as well as the forestry ecosystem and Land Uses and Land Cover Changes (LULCC) to come up with a list of actions for minimizing GHG emission in terms of climate change. In our cases, an important national project is responsible for measuring CO2 originating from the soil under different land use schemes. Hence, effective GHG mitigation policies should be economically efficient, providing a balance between rapid human demand from different sectors and sustainability of land resources. Altogether, the reduction of GHGs in all sectors is one of the necessary steps to fight climate changes on a global scale and to insure sustainability of the Earth’s resources