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1. Agricultural Productivity and Climate Mitigation

   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-101323-094349  

   Fuglie, Keith O; Hertel, Thomas W; Lobell, David B; Villoria, Nelson B (October 2024, Annual Review of Resource Economics)

   Agriculture will play a central role in meeting greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets, as the sector currently contributes ∼22% of global emissions. Because emissions are directly tied to resources employed in farm production, such as land, fertilizer, and ruminant animals, the productivity of input use tends to be inversely related to emissions intensity. We review evidence on how productivity gains in agriculture have contributed to historical changes in emissions, how they affect land use emissions both locally and globally, and how investments in research and development (R&D) affect productivity and therefore emissions. The world average agricultural emissions intensity fell by more than half since 1990, with a strong correlation between a region's agricultural productivity growth and reduction in emissions intensity. Additional investment in agricultural R&D offers an opportunity for cost-effective ( 

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2. Enhanced nitrous oxide emission factors due to climate change increase the mitigation challenge in the agricultural sector

   https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17472  

   Li, Linchao; Lu, Chaoqun; Winiwarter, Wilfried; Tian, Hanqin; Canadell, Josep G; Ito, Akihiko; Jain, Atul K; Kou‐Giesbrecht, Sian; Pan, Shufen; Pan, Naiqing; et al (August 2024, Global Change Biology)

   Abstract Effective nitrogen fertilizer management is crucial for reducing nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions while ensuring food security within planetary boundaries. However, climate change might also interact with management practices to alter N₂O emission and emission factors (EFs), adding further uncertainties to estimating mitigation potentials. Here, we developed a new hybrid modeling framework that integrates a machine learning model with an ensemble of eight process‐based models to project EFs under different climate and nitrogen policy scenarios. Our findings reveal that EFs are dynamically modulated by environmental changes, including climate, soil properties, and nitrogen management practices. Under low‐ambition nitrogen regulation policies, EF would increase from 1.18%–1.22% in 2010 to 1.27%–1.34% by 2050, representing a relative increase of 4.4%–11.4% and exceeding the IPCC tier‐1 EF of 1%. This trend is particularly pronounced in tropical and subtropical regions with high nitrogen inputs, where EFs could increase by 0.14%–0.35% (relative increase of 11.9%–17%). In contrast, high‐ambition policies have the potential to mitigate the increases in EF caused by climate change, possibly leading to slight decreases in EFs. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that global EFs are expected to continue rising due to warming and regional drying–wetting cycles, even in the absence of changes in nitrogen management practices. This asymmetrical influence of nitrogen fertilizers on EFs, driven by climate change, underscores the urgent need for immediate N₂O emission reductions and further assessments of mitigation potentials. This hybrid modeling framework offers a computationally efficient approach to projecting future N₂O emissions across various climate, soil, and nitrogen management scenarios, facilitating socio‐economic assessments and policy‐making efforts. 

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3. Domestic energy consumption and climate change mitigation

   https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.525  

   Abrahamse, Wokje; Shwom, Rachael (July 2018, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change)
4. Aligning artificial intelligence with climate change mitigation

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01377-7  

   Kaack, Lynn H.; Donti, Priya L.; Strubell, Emma; Kamiya, George; Creutzig, Felix; Rolnick, David (June 2022, Nature Climate Change)
5. Climate change stimulated agricultural innovation and exchange across Asia

   https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar4491  

   d’Alpoim Guedes, Jade; Bocinsky, R. Kyle (October 2018, Science Advances)

   Ancient farmers experienced climate change at the local level through variations in the yields of their staple crops. However, archaeologists have had difficulty in determining where, when, and how changes in climate affected ancient farmers. We model how several key transitions in temperature affected the productivity of six grain crops across Eurasia. Cooling events between 3750 and 3000 cal. BP lead humans in parts of the Tibetan Plateau and in Central Asia to diversify their crops. A second event at 2000 cal. BP leads farmers in central China to also diversify their cropping systems and to develop systems that allowed transport of grains from southern to northern China. In other areas where crop returns fared even worse, humans reduced their risk by increasing investment in nomadic pastoralism and developing long-distance networks of trade. By translating changes in climatic variables into factors that mattered to ancient farmers, we situate the adaptive strategies they developed to deal with variance in crop returns in the context of environmental and climatic changes. 

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