Agriculture's Rank in Greenhouse Gas Emissions
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.
Well it’s a constant point of discussion and now we have the latest batch of statistics to throw into it. According to the latest data from the USDA’s Economic Research Service, farming activities in the United States accounted for some 10.6% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2021.
New data released this week shows that from 2020 to 2021, agricultural greenhouse gas emissions remained nearly constant but decreased from 11.1 percent to 10.6 percent as a share of total U.S. emissions because of changes in other industries. The Environmental Protection Agency estimated that in 2021, agriculture emitted 312.6 million metric tons as nitrous oxide, 278.4 million metric tons as methane, 44.7 million metric tons as on-farm carbon dioxide, and 35.7 million metric tons emitted indirectly through the electricity that the agricultural sector uses.
Of the common economic sectors in the United States, industry accounted for the largest portion of total greenhouse gas emissions at 30.1 percent, followed by transportation, commercial, residential and agriculture. But it’s a graph pointing down. Total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 were 2.3 percent lower than in 1990.
