Tens of thousands of officials, political leaders, advocates and industry representatives have descended on Dubai for this year’s United Nations annual climate summit known as COP28.
Delegates worldwide have signed pledges to reduce greenhouse emissions from agriculture sources this year. The summit focuses on food systems and sustainable agriculture, calling for an “urgent” transformation of the world’s food and crop production.
Officials have made similar commitments to decrease agriculture’s climate impacts in years past.
Still, agriculture emissions have slightly increased in top emitting countries between 2015 and 2022, according to a data analysis of emissions tracking data from Climate TRACE. The independent nonprofit tracks emissions using satellite imagery.
India and the U.S. had the largest increases over the past eight years, though the increases have been relatively small, Climate TRACE’S data says. They had a 10.5% and 5% increase in emissions, respectively.
DATA ANALYSIS: The increase was calculated using carbon equivalent emissions that are used to predict warming over the next 20 years, a metric commonly used in emissions reporting. Data collected by Climate TRACE collects emissions related to manure from livestock feeding lots, rice cultivation, cropland loss and other emission-intense activities known to emit gasses such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.
