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Review
. 2022 Feb 23;3(2):100220.
doi: 10.1016/j.xinn.2022.100220. eCollection 2022 Mar 29.

China's low-emission pathways toward climate-neutral livestock production for animal-derived foods

Rong Wang  1 , Zhaohai Bai  2 , Jinfeng Chang  3 , Qiushuang Li  1 , Alexander N Hristov  4 , Pete Smith  5 , Yulong Yin  1 , Zhiliang Tan  1 , Min Wang  1
Affiliations
Review

China's low-emission pathways toward climate-neutral livestock production for animal-derived foods

Rong Wang et al. Innovation (Camb). .

Abstract

Animal-derived food production accounts for one-third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Diet followed in China is ranked as low-carbon emitting (i.e., 0.21 t CO2-eq per capita in 2018, ranking at 145th of 168 countries) due to the low average animal-derived food consumption rate, and preferential consumption of animal-derived foods with lower GHG emissions (i.e., pork and eggs versus beef and milk). However, the projected increase in GHG emissions from livestock production poses great challenges for achieving China's "carbon neutrality" pledge. We propose that the livestock sector in China may achieve "climate neutrality" with net-zero warming around 2050 by implementing healthy diet and mitigation strategies to control enteric methane emissions.

Keywords: enteric methane emissions; greenhouse gas; healthy diet; methane mitigation; ruminant animals.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Animal-derived foods (ADF) consumption with GHG emissions and mitigation strategies toward climate-neutral livestock production in China (A) Classification of country-based ADF consumption per capita for 168 countries in 2018. (B) Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensities of ADF from mutton, beef, fish, pork, milk, poultry, and eggs; the data for fish are obtained from Poore and Nemecek, and the rest are from FAOSTAT. (C) Country-based map of GHG emissions due to ADF per capita in 2018. (D) Animal-derived foods consumption with related GHG emissions in 2018, and under scenarios of 2050 assuming BAU (2050-BAU) or healthy diet (2050-Diet) in China. (E) Cumulative carbon dioxide warming equivalent (CO2-we) for livestock production under scenarios of 2050-BAU, 2050-Diet, and 2050-Diet with additional 55% of enteric methane reduction (2050-Diet + 55% of methane reduction) from 2011 to 2050 in China. The dotted line indicates the point of climate-neutral livestock production at which annual CO2we emissions do not add to further warming. Error bar indicates standard error.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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