Fig. 1: Assessment of future agricultural production and land use in Ireland with various NZ definitions.
From: Defining national net zero goals is critical for food and land use policy
a Workflow indicating generation, abatement modification, NZ filtering, and subsequent post hoc analysis of 3000 scenarios of future agricultural production and land use combinations in Ireland. b Summary of NZ definitions applied in this study, with ovals representing definitions. These definitions encompass CO2 only emissions (carbon neutrality), the balance of GHGs over 100 years (GWP100), warming potential (GWP*), and a national CH4 emission target based on equal percentage reduction across countries to achieve temperature stabilisation (CH4 Target Grand-parenting). Definitions on the right are derivatives of four fundamentally different definitions on the left. LT: Long-term, indicating warming or flux balance out to 2100 (as opposed to balance achieved in the year 2050 only). Fairness was explored within GWP* and CH4 Target definitions by differing Ireland’s future NZ CH4 emission targets and reference emissions levels based on allocation of global CH4 emissions compatible with temperature stabilisation equally per capita, globally, or by national protein production14. Further details can be found in the Methods Section.
