Global Climate Change Research at Economic Research Service USDA

1
Global Climate Change Research at
Economic Research
ServiceUSDA

• Carol A. Jones,
• Associate Director for Research
• Resource Economics Division
• ERS/USDA
• August 2, 2002

2
Overview of talk

• ERS mission
• ERS climate change research
• Understanding Ecosystem Changes Economic impacts
  of GHG accumulation on global agriculture
  (.4mi/year, 00-03)
• Global Carbon Cycle Economics of mitigation
  options in agriculture (.4mi/year, 00-03)
• gt Research to support decision-making

3
ERS mission informing decisions through research

• To inform and enhance public and private
  decision-making
• On economic and policy issues related to
  agriculture, food, natural resources, and rural
  development
• Through objective, high-quality, and timely data
  development, research and analysis
• Target audiences
• Executive and legislative branch policy makers
• Stakeholders

4
ERS research economic impacts of GHG on global
agriculture

• Global world economy model platform (with
  detailed land, water databases for ag and
  forestry)
• Impacts via climate change, CO2 fertilization
• Long time horizon 50-100 years
• Incorporates farm-level adaptations
• Current research cycle summary of impacts over a
  range of future temperatures (ERS report in 2003)

5
Opportunities for mitigationin agriculture

• Carbon sequestration (possibly increasing N2O)
• Land management (tillage, irrigation management,
  fertilizer management, cover crops, eliminating
  fallow)
• Land use change to grassland, forest
• Emission reduction CO2, N2O, methane
• Energy emissions (direct, induced energy use)
• Livestock enteric fermentation, manure
  management
• Bio-energy products (reduces energy CO2 emissions)

6
ERS research economics of agricultural
mitigation options

• Model platform reports detailed economic,
  environmental outcomes for US ag sector
• Short time horizon 10 years
• Links with ERS research for design of new
  conservation programs for working lands
  (complementing land retirement programs)
• Current research CO2 impacts of land management,
  land use change (report in 2003)

7
Providing decision support for mitigation policy
design

• Conservation program framework - providing
  subsidies for environmental outcomes
• Voluntary trading framework, early credit
  programs
• Broad scale trading of emission reduction credits
  (with sequestration offsets)

8
ERS vision for long-termresearch on GHG

• Apply different modeling platforms to address
  different questions asked by US policy makers
• regional/national/global ag-forestry sectors/all
  sectors
• Evaluate alternative sources of agriculture
  emission parameters (IPCC, EPIC, Century)
• Assess impacts on multiple environmental media
• Connect agriculture and forestry sectors
• Employ longer-term perspective (than 10 years) to
  address permanence, saturation issues -
  incorporate long-run impacts of GHG into
  mitigation analysis

9
ERS collaborations to promote research

• Interdisciplinary research collaborations within
  USDA, with academic community
• USDA/EPA Forestry and Agriculture GHG Modeling
  Forum, to compare research results
• Participants leading researchers from a range of
  disciplines, types of institutions
• Multiple modeling platforms represented
• Current focus is on analyzing mitigation
• Research investments are occurring to allow
  linkage of mitigation and impacts in global level
  modeling in next 5 years

10
ERS collaborations to coordinate research - 2

• ERS participates in
• Carbon Cycle Interagency Working Group
• Informal Human Contributions and Response
  consultations (NOAA, DOE, EPA, NASA,...)
• Informal connections with Land Use/Land Cover
  Interagency Working Group

11
www.ers.usda.gov