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1 1 (September 2, 2021)

handle is hein.crs/govegri0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Updated September 2,2021 Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks in U.S. Agriculture Agriculture and land-use activities continue to play a centralrole in the broader debate about energy and climate policy options in the United States and abroad. Such activities offer opportunities to remove greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the atmosphere, potentially reducing the nation's net emissions: the metric of emis sions targets for the Paris Agreement (PA), the binding international climate change treaty. Pursuant to the PA, the Biden Administration released a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) in 2021 specifying a new U.S. target of reducing net GHG emis sions by 50%-52% below 2005 levels by 2030. Most federal legislative proposals to reduce U.S. GHG emissions would not require reductions in agriculture, but some would incentivize voluntary actions to do so. For example, the Growing Climate Solutions Act (S. 1251/H.R 2820, 117th) would support the creation and use of agriculture and forestry offset credits in carbon markets by establishing qualifications for technical as sis tance providers and third- party verifiers and by developing a list of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-backed offset protocols. Agriculture is both a source and a sink of GHGs (Figure 1). Sources generate GHG emissions that are released into the atmosphere and contribute to global climate change. Sinks remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and store carbon through physicalor biological processes. Agricultural emissions include many GHGs ofinterestto policymakers: CO2, methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O). Agricultural sinks remove CO2 through photosynthesis and store carbon in plants and soil. Despite these sinks, U.S. agriculture is a net GHG source. This In Focus discusses emissions fromthe agriculture sector, as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the most recent data available (from2019). US. GHG inventory Since the 1990s, EPA has prepared an annualInventory of U.S. GHG Emissions and Sinks. USDA and other federal agencies contribute data and analyses. The Inventory reports GHG estimates by sector, source, and GHG type. The Inventory presents GHG es timates as C02-equivalents, aggregated to millions of metric tons (MMTCO2-Eq.). C02- equivalents convert an amountof a GHG, such as N20, to the amount of CO2 that could have a similar impact on global temperature over a specific duration (100 years in the Inventory). This common measurement canhelp compare the magnitudes of various GHG sources and s inks. The Inventory presents GHG estimates for two types of sector classifications. One classification follows international standards. Every country preparing its national inventory considers the same GHG sources and sinks for the same standard sectors. These include an agriculture sector and a land-use, land-usechange andforestry (LULUCF) sector. The Inventory also reports estimates for several EPA-defined economic sectors, including agriculture, transportation, electricity, industry, commercial, and residential. Under this format, the agriculture sector includes emissions fromfuel-combustion by farm equipment (e.g., tractors) as well as the emission sources already accounted for in the international standard sector for agriculture. Agricuktural GHG Emissions EPA reports thatagriculture sectoremissions totaled 669.5 MMTCO2-Eq. in 2019 (Table 1), equalto 10.2% of total U.S. GHG emissions (Figure 2). This estimate is based on certain as sumptions and includes direct emis sions from agricultural activities (see textbelow for major emissions sources in agriculture). It does not include * Potentially offsetting agricultural sinks. * Forestry activities, which are accounted forin LULUCF. * Emissions fromgenerating theelectricity thatfarms use. * Emissions fromactivities in the food systemmore broadly, such as productionof agricultural inputs and post-harvest transportation andprocessing of foods. oaJH

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