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Land-based implications of early climate actions without global net-negative emissions

Nature Sustainability volume 4, pages 1052–1059 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Delaying climate mitigation action and allowing a temporary overshoot of temperature targets require large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in the second half of this century that may induce adverse side effects on land, food and ecosystems. Meanwhile, meeting climate goals without global net-negative emissions inevitably needs early and rapid emission reduction measures, which also brings challenges in the near term. Here we identify the implications for land-use and food systems of scenarios that do not depend on land-based CDR technologies. We find that early climate action has multiple benefits and trade-offs, and avoids the need for drastic (mitigation-induced) shifts in land use in the long term. Further long-term benefits are lower food prices, reduced risk of hunger and lower demand for irrigation water. Simultaneously, however, near-term mitigation pressures in the agriculture, forest and land-use sector and the required land area for energy crops increase, resulting in additional risk of food insecurity.

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Fig. 1: AFOLU-related GHG emissions and sequestrations.
Fig. 2: Timing of net-zero emissions for total anthropogenic CO2 emissions (based on GWP100) and AFOLU’s GHG emissions.
Fig. 3: Land-use changes with respect to 2010 in the scenarios with different CB caps.

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Data availability

Data used in the study are available at the repository https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5078072.

Code availability

Code used in the study is available at the repository https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ZDXB6F.

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Acknowledgements

T.H., S. Fujimori and K.O. were supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (JPMEERF20202002 and JPMEERF20211001) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and Sumitomo Foundation. T.H. was supported by the Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization (R-GIRO), Ritsumeikan University. P.R. and R.S. were supported by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). All authors excluding J.D., K.K. and F.F. received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 821471 (ENGAGE).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Japan

    Tomoko Hasegawa

  2. Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Tomoko Hasegawa & Shinichiro Fujimori

  3. Department of Environmental Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Shinichiro Fujimori & Ken Oshiro

  4. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria

    Shinichiro Fujimori, Stefan Frank, Mykola Gusti, Bas van Ruijven, Anique-Marie Cabardos, Andre Deppermann, Petr Havlik, Volker Krey & Keywan Riahi

  5. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Potsdam, Germany

    Florian Humpenöder, Christoph Bertram & Alexander Popp

  6. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Seville, Spain

    Jacques Després, Kimon Keramidas & Florian Fosse

  7. RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment, Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, Milan, Italy

    Laurent Drouet & Johannes Emmerling

  8. Lviv Polytechnic National University, Lviv, Ukraine

    Mykola Gusti

  9. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague, the Netherlands

    Mathijs Harmsen & Detlef van Vuuren

  10. Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Mathijs Harmsen & Detlef van Vuuren

  11. E-Konzal Co. Ltd., Yodogawa, Osaka, Japan

    Yuki Ochi

  12. Centre for Energy and Environmental Economics (CENERGIA-COPPE), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Pedro Rochedo & Roberto Schaeffer

  13. Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria

    Keywan Riahi

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  1. Tomoko Hasegawa
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Contributions

T.H. designed the research, created figures and wrote the draft of the paper; S. Fujimori, V.K., D.v.V. and K.R. designed the scenario protocol; T.H. and S. Fujimori carried out analysis of the modelling results with notable contributions from T.H., S. Fujimori, Y.O., K.O. (AIM/CGE), P.R., R.S. (COFFEE), M.H. (IMAGE), S. Frank, M.G., B.v.R, A.-M.C., A.D., P.H., V.K. (MESSAGEix-GLOBIOM), J.D., K.K, F.F. (POLES), F.H., C.B., A.P. (ReMIND-MAgPIE), L.D. and J.E. (WITCH); all authors provided feedback and contributed to writing the paper.

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Correspondence to Tomoko Hasegawa.

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Peer review information Nature Sustainability thanks John Antle and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Hasegawa, T., Fujimori, S., Frank, S. et al. Land-based implications of early climate actions without global net-negative emissions. Nat Sustain 4, 1052–1059 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00772-w

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