Full adoption of existing mitigation strategies can help meet livestock methane reduction targets by 2030

Full adoption of existing mitigation strategies can help meet livestock methane reduction targets by 2030

Amid the often-distressing news about climate change, some good news: Existing strategies could mitigate livestock methane emissions by enough to help the sector limit its share of global warming to the 1.5°C target by 2030.

In a meta-analysis published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Claudia Arndt, Leader of the Mazingira Centre at the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya, and a score of experts from top-level institutes around the world reviewed hundreds of peer-reviewed studies for strategies designed to decrease product-based and absolute enteric methane emissions by ruminants. The research was initiated by Alexander N. Hristov at Penn State University. They found that livestock production could help meet the 1.5°C target by 2030—with the provision that the identified most effective product-based and the most effective absolute mitigation strategies be fully adopted, a goal that would require concerted action to identify and remove adoption barriers.

However, scientists caution that to stay on track by 2050, additional strategies will be needed due to a projected increase in demand for livestock products. Thus, current strategies can meet short-term targets, but further research is needed to develop strategies sufficient to meet longer-run targets.

Click here to read the full article on ILRI.org

Photo credit: Livestock in Yabello, Ethiopia / Apollo Habtamu / ILRI