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Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) plays an important role in decarbonization pathways to meet climate goals, but some methods are land-intensive. Multimodel analysis reveals conflicts between biodiversity and CDR that are distributed unevenly, and shows that synergies are crucial to meet climate and conservation goals.

Carbon sequestration on agricultural land holds great promise for combating climate change. This study estimates the mitigation potential of three sequestration practices—soil carbon enhancement, biochar application on cropland and silvo-pastoral systems—while identifying cost-effective mitigation portfolios.

Existing datasets of nitrogen (N) balance in agriculture are often discrepant. Comparing 13 of them regarding five metrics (fertilizer application, manure application, biological N fixation, atmospheric deposition, and N harvested as crop products) over 1961–2015 reveals why. Recommendations for improving N quantification and an N budget benchmark dataset are also proposed.

Negative-emission technologies might pose trade-offs to food security and other land-based sustainability targets. A scenario analysis reveals the potential impacts of bioenergy deployment in China on global and domestic sustainable development, and how free trade and food systems efficiency measures could mitigate the potential adverse sustainability impacts.

African rice production is facing high spatiotemporal variability in rice yields and uncertain supply chains. This study proposes a framework to assess the future impacts of socio-economic development and climate change on African rice availability and stability. Both local and trade-propagated climatic variabilities are important to identify future challenges.

This study investigates the effects of forestation on temperature in Europe using climate model experiments. The findings indicate that conversion from coniferous to broadleaved trees in currently forested areas can provide cooling for summer hot extremes.

Agricultural CH₄ and N₂O emissions represent around 11% of total anthropogenic GHGs. Here agriculture mitigation potentials are quantified, in the context of the 1.5 °C target, and decomposed by emission source, region and mitigation mechanism.

Rapid urbanization affects both local food and ecological systems in Africa. This study integrates the effects of land-use displacement and dietary shifts associated with urbanization in scenarios of future food demand to understand the impact of future urbanization on the African environment.

Meat and dairy alternatives are promoted for diet sustainability. Here, the authors use a modelling approach to show that replacing 50% of pork, chicken, beef and milk globally with plant-based alternatives can reduce GHG emissions by 6.3 Gt CO₂eq year^-1 and more than half biodiversity loss by 2050.

China’s feed imports have a considerable environmental impact globally. This modelling study quantifies China’s potential protein self-sufficiency by simulating farming spatial relocation according to irrigation water and nitrogen surplus, as well as technological innovations and demand-side measures.

The sustainability effects of agricultural development and market integration on African food systems are varied and complex. Using an integrated modelling framework, this study investigates the impact of both continental free trade and agricultural development on African food imports and exports, undernourishment and sectoral greenhouse gas emissions until 2050.

Seaweed farming could reduce agriculture’s environmental footprint, but its potential is not well-explored yet. This study shows how globally extended aquaculture can reduce terrestrial crops demand and greenhouse gas emissions while providing a substitute or supplement for food, animal feeds and fuel.

Mass production of nanoparticles containing well-controlled structural defects is a challenge. Here the authors demonstrate the feasibility of homogeneous ion irradiation generated in a nuclear reactor, for the preparation of fluorescent nanodiamonds and silicon carbide nanoparticles.

Delaying climate mitigation requires large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in the second half of this century, with possible adverse effects. Under scenarios with no dependence on CDR technologies, this study examines the short- and long-term implications of climate mitigation for land-use and food systems.

Increasing nitrogen use efficiency is the most effective strategy to reduce undernourishment while respecting the nitrogen boundaries in regions such as China and India. This supply-side effort plays a more important role in alleviating food insecurity than demand-side efforts such as diet shifts and reduced waste when introducing regional nitrogen targets.

Owing to its short atmospheric life, methane’s contribution to agricultural emissions and climate change may vary substantially depending on the temporal scale considered. Based on projections from three agricultural economic models, this study reveals how different appreciations of methane’s global warming potential may affect the cost-effectiveness of carbon pricing and low-meat diets.

Emissions abatement efforts in the agriculture, forestry and land-use sector are vital to achieve climate change mitigation targets, but their effects on food security remain poorly understood. Using six global agroeconomic models, this study explores how afforestation, bioenergy and non-CO₂ emissions reductions could impact agricultural prices and the risk of hunger under different scenarios.

To promote the recovery of the currently declining global trends in terrestrial biodiversity, increases in both the extent of land under conservation management and the sustainability of the global food system from farm to fork are required.

There is a mismatch between emission estimates from global land use calculated from IAMs and countries’ greenhouse gas inventories. This study presents a method for reconciling these estimates by reallocating part of the land-use sink, facilitating progress assessment towards climate goals.

Meeting China’s growing demand for food, especially for livestock products, will have huge environmental impacts domestically and globally. This study finds large increases in land, water, fertilizer and greenhouse gas emissions that vary based on openness of trade.

Grasslands, and the livestock that live there, are dynamic sources and sinks of greenhouse gases, but what controls these fluxes remains poorly characterized. Here the authors show that on the global level, grasslands are climate neutral owing to the cancelling effects of managed vs. natural systems.

Global average, geographical distribution and temporal variations of the 13C isotopic signature of enteric fermentation emissions are not well understood. Here the authors established a global dataset and show a larger emission increase between the two periods (2002–2006 and 2008–2012) than previous studies.

Urgent action is needed to ensure food security and mitigate climate change. Through a multi-model comparison exercise, this study shows the potential negative trade-offs between food security and climate change mitigation if mitigation policies are carelessly designed.

The impacts of climate change on agriculture differ regionally and will increase hunger globally. Reducing tariffs and other barriers to international trade would mitigate this, but trade integration requires a careful approach to avoid reducing domestic food security in food-exporting regions.

A scenario simulation to tackle hunger globally reveals that improving food availability for the under-nourished through better distribution has a better environmental performance than increasing overall food availability.

Residual CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels limit the likelihood of meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. A sector-level assessment of residual emissions using an ensemble of IAMs indicates that 640–950 GtCO₂ removal will be required to constrain warming to 1.5 °C.

There lacks model comparison of global land use change projections. Here the authors explored how different long-term drivers determine land use and food availability projections and they showed that the key determinants population growth and improvements in agricultural efficiency.

To achieve the climate target of the Paris Agreement substantial emission reductions will be required across economic sectors. Here the authors show that agriculture can make a significant contribution to non-CO₂ mitigation efforts through structural change in the livestock sector and the deployment of technical options.

Scenarios that constrain end-of-century radiative forcing to 1.9 W m^–2, and thus global mean temperature increases to below 1.5 °C, are explored. Effective scenarios reduce energy use, deploy CO₂ removal measures, and shift to non-emitting energy sources.

Trade liberalization in the early 21st century increased the adaptation capacity of global food systems to climate change; further liberalization and trade facilitation could help to avoid dozens of millions being undernourished at mid-century. The global trade agenda should explicitly include climate change adaptation to achieve SDG 2 Zero Hunger.

The Paris Agreement is based on emission scenarios that move from a sluggish phase-out of fossil fuels to large-scale late-century negative emissions. Alternative pathways of early deployment of negative emission technologies need to be considered to ensure that climate targets are reached safely and sustainably.

Economy-wide GHG emissions reductions may negatively affect food security. Stringent mitigation policies, modelled as carbon prices, are shown to lead to an increase in production costs, food prices and the population’s risk of hunger.

Global high-resolution crop-specific estimates of greenhouse gas emissions intensity (in 2000) reveal that certain cropping practices contribute disproportionately to emissions, making them suitable targets for climate mitigation policies.

Transformation of the land sector is required to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C. Here, modelled emission pathways and mitigation strategies are reviewed. A land-sector roadmap of priority measures and key regions is presented.

Achieving sustainable development goals while meeting the 1.5 °C climate target requires radical changes to how we use energy. A scenario of low energy demand shows how this can be done by down-sizing the global energy system to enable feasible deployment rates of renewable energy resources.

Technologies and systemic innovation are critical for the transformation of the food system. This Perspective identifies promising technologies, assesses their readiness and proposes eight action points to accelerate innovation.

This Review article looks at options for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock sector, including technical and management interventions, sustainable intensification of production and moderation of demand for livestock products.