Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Agriculture: A Comparative Analysis

Greenhouse gas emissions are accounted by greenhouse gases inventories, which must be produced by common accounting rules, called Guidelines, which are endorsed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These inventories are fundamental to analyze the impact of agriculture on emissions, and as example of the difficulty and complexity of implementation of the guidelines, a comparative study is made on emissions from Agricultural Soil Management (CRF category 3D source) utilizing biological nitrogen fixation. The analysis carried out for the N2O emissions under this section of the agrarian sector of Spain, Europe, New Zealand, Canada and the USA, inventories and national communications from Argentina and Brazil permit to observe the wide spectrum of approaches and the importance of the management of the accounting rules to be used mainly if we need that the impact of mitigation policies are captured in a direct way by the inventory. New technologies could introduce changes in the rules and can be utilized for reducing emissions, and examples are also analyzed.