GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM LIVESTOCK IN CHINA AND MITIGATION OPTIONS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF CARBON NEUTRALITY

Highlights

● Livestock is major greenhouse gas source in agriculture in China.

● Greenhouse gas emissions in livestock shows an upward trend during 1994 to 2014.

● Main mitigation options are improving productivity, feed quality and manure recycling.

● Strengthening monitoring and standards is necessary for capacity building.

Abstract

Animal husbandry is a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in agriculture. Mitigating the emissions from the livestock sector is vital for green development of agriculture in China. Based on National Communication on Climate Change of United Nations, this study aims to investigate the characteristics of GHG emissions of animal husbandry during 1994 to 2014, introduce major emission reduction technologies and their effectiveness, and investigate options for emission reduction for the livestock sector in China. It proposes that control of pollution and carbon emissions can be realized through increased animal productivity, improved feed quality and recycling of animal manure. This paper thus concludes with suggestions of green and low-carbon development of animal husbandry, including the research and development of new technology for emission reduction and carbon sequestration of the livestock sector, enhancement of monitoring and evaluation, and establishment of emission reduction and carbon sequestration standards.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

animal husbandry / emission reduction solutions / feed improvement / greenhouse gases emission / manure management

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Acknowledgements

This study was sponsored by the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFE0115600), Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program (CAAS-ZDRW202110), and China Agricultural Research System (CARS-42-23). We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on this article.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Zhiping Zhu, Yue Wang, Ting Yan, Zherui Zhang, Shunli Wang, and Hongmin Dong declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2023. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)