Low-carbon agricultural development in the context of climate change: International experiences and China’s strategies

In the context of a global joint response to climate change, it is of great practical significance for China to explore international experiences in agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction to implement its cooperation initiative on climate change and promote sustainable agricultural development. Taking the USA, EU, and Japan as representative countries, their main practices, latest actions, and achievements in low-carbon agricultural development were identified. By combining basic concepts with Chinese characteristics, strategies targeting low-carbon agricultural development were proposed. The research showed that: 1) Compared with India, as an emerging economy, China’s total agricultural GHG emissions and per capita emissions were similar, but China’s per GDP emissions, 44.52 t∙(10⁶)⁻¹, were far lower than that of India, 278.11 t∙(10⁶)⁻¹. Compared with the USA, as a populous country, China’s total GHG emissions were much higher, but its per capita emissions (0.46 t∙cap.⁻¹) were significantly lower than that of USA (1.15 t∙cap.⁻¹). China must fully consider its reality as a populous country and a developing economy, and scientifically and reasonably formulate emission reduction targets. 2) The USA has actively explored perfecting laws and regulations, fiscal taxation and subsidies, clean energy promotion, carbon emission rights, and carbon sink market transactions, and its per capita agricultural GHG emissions in 2020 have decreased by 19.58% compared to those in 1990. The EU’s advanced practices were mainly reflected in improvements in laws and regulations, fiscal and taxation support and ecological compensation, and innovations in management and technology; its per capita GHG emissions in 2020 decreased by 29.03% compared with those in 1990. Japan mainly launched actions in renewable energy promotion, innovations in management and technology, food production guarantees, and climate adaptation, and its per capita GHG emissions in 2020 decreased by 29.17% compared to those in 1990. 3) China’s strategies for low-carbon agricultural development aim at ensuring food supply, reducing greenhouse effects, and realizing ecological values. Given this, continuously improving relevant laws and regulations, increasing support for public finance and taxation plus green finance, strengthening innovations in management and technology, accelerating the adjustment and upgrading of the energy structure, and gradually improving the trading mechanism of the carbon market have been put forward.