Setting up integrated assessment of the nitrogen cycle and fluxes within regional and global food systems, will be essential to correctly curb nitrogen dioxide emissions, according to experts.
Air pollution, mainly from burning fossil fuels, kills 7 million people prematurely every year, but nitrogen dioxide released by the agricultural sector hardly get accounted for its risks to climate and health. If for sectors such as transport and energy, decarbonisation is the buzz word, de-nitrogenize is the main challenge of our food systems.
Fertilisers and pesticides are one of the principal causes of nitrogen dioxide presence within the environment, causing biodiversity loss and reduction. Within the Fourth session of the UN Environment Assembly of the UN Environment Programme, the “Resolution on Sustainable Nitrogen Management” adopted, recommended action on nitrogen for protecting air and water quality, biodiversity, food sustainability and post-COVID economic recovery.
Decreasing the surplus nitrogen and its release to the environment, is therefore critical: “Food systems dominate nitrogen emissions. But at the same time, they offer the most cost effective solutions for improvements in sustainable nitrogen management,” said Marcus Geupe, from the German Environmental Agency.
After evaluating over 100 abatement measures across all sectors, with regard to different criteria, effectiveness, costs and societal acceptance, the agency found the agricultural sector to hold the highest potential. According to Geupe the detailed assessment will be an important fundament for setting negotiations, and such integrated analysis should be replicated in other countries to correctly addressing their nitrogen fluxes and finding how to manage them sustainably.
The rising potential for mitigating nitrogen emissions call for the emergence of what experts name nitro finance: “We’ve heard of green finance in many forms, but nitro finance has not yet been the focus,” said Mark Sutton, professor, University of Edinburgh, School of Geosciences Recently the UN member states adopted the Colombo Declaration with aim to halve nitrogen waste from all sources. This initiative is said to be able to save $ 100 billion annually.
The claim for nitro finance comes from the huge business opportunities for innovation technologies able to revert such surplus. A study from Hi Fidelity Genetics (HFG), a computational crop breeding company, supports the claims, that changes in farming practices could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 70%. The researchers found that optimizing the efficiency of current technologies to reduce the use of nitrogen fertilizer, which is the largest contributor to row crop emissions, could reduce nitrogen application by 36% enabling to achieve a 23% emissions reduction. Replacing current technology with second-generation technologies such as crop genetics, electrical ammonia synthesis, microbial synthesis of nitrogen, and electric farm equipment, could reduce emissions by 41% over the next five years.
“We need to find a way on how to trap nitrogen oxides that come out of factories and turn that into fertiliser instead of destroying that resource,” he stated. Sutton mentions that increasing investments and diverting incentives for fertilisers towards recycled resources could help push towards a circular economy.
An overall obstacle however remains, as countries’ do not envision specific targets for reducing agricultural emissions as part of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Until this sector will play such a little mention in countries’ decarbonisation plans, investors confidence and willingness to invest will remain low.