Using a new metric by Oxford University (GWP*) and new IPCC guidelines (IPCC, 2019) we have estimated GHG and linked annual GHG emission rates with warming effect from small ruminant production systems in Europe and Turkey. Results indicate that for the period 1990-2017 the European sheep and goat production systems has not contributed to additional temperature increase.
In order to check what reductions in emissions are required to help stabilize the temperature, we tested the effect of different emission target scenarios for 2050 having 2005 as the year of reference. A non-warming effect will be found if we decrease annual GHG emissions by 0.3%, 0.5%, 1% or 2%. Moreover, increasing annual CH4 emissions by 0.3% or 0.5% would actually still result in moderate non-warming for most of the years to come until 2050.
We also explored the implications of the new update of IPCC guidelines on small ruminant production systems GHG estimations and found that for Europe GHG estimations based on IPCC (2006) have been overestimated (compared with the new updated methodology) by 18% and 28% for sheep and goats, respectively.
