Inverting the carbon footprint in Brazilian agriculture: an estimate of the effect of the ABC Plan

Resumo

The Sectoral Plan of Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change in order to consolidate an Economy of Low Carbon Emissions in Agriculture (ABC Plan) integrates the commitments made by Brazil to mitigate its emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). The objective of this study was to estimate GHG emissions from the agriculture and livestock sector considering the adoption of three low carbon emission technologies (LCT) – pasture recovery, integrated crop-livestock systems (ICLS) and the integrated crop-livestock-forest systems (ICLFS). The GHG emissions were estimated considering the growth projections of the production of soybean, corn, rice, beans, cotton, wheat, sugarcane and pastures from 2012 to 2023. Two scenarios were considered: I - without the adoption of LCT; II - with adoption of LCT, proposed by the ABC Plan. In scenario I, the cumulative emissions estimated were 670.47 million tCO₂eq, with only about 22.67 million tCO₂eq from agricultural activities. In the scenario II, the stock of carbon in the soil was higher than carbon emissions and would be 1.10 billion tCO₂eq, with recovery of 75% of degraded pastures areas and implementation of ICLS and ICLFS in 25% of the area of degraded pastures. It was estimated that 52 million of cattle heads would be added to the Brazilian production system with adoption of the LCT. We concluded that technologies proposed by the ABC Plan can mitigate climate change and the Brazilian agricultural sector can reduce its carbon footprint and become the main sector in mitigating emissions.