GHG Mitigation Policies and Land Use Interactions

Abstract

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are widely acknowledged to be responsible for much of the global warming in the past century. Since the burning of fossil-based fuels is an important source of GHGs, the policies on GHG mitigation encourage the replacement of fossil-based energy with biomass energy. This policy would lead to a large-scale conversion of land to production of crops for biomass energy. The impacts of GHG mitigation policies were analyzed for five types of agricultural land—cropland, managed forestry, pasture, unmanaged forestry, and unmanaged grassland—in terms of their carbon storage capacities and the effects of conversion of the land to use for biomass fuel cropland. The research indicates that biomass energy production would lead to a reduction of the biological carbon-storage capacities of these land types. Although there would still be a net benefit in reducing atmospheric GHG emissions, such benefits would be partly counteracted by the land-use conversion. Thus, this paper provides an example of the need for further study to discern all the implications of proposed GHG mitigation policies and technologies and the degrees to which they are likely to enhance our future.