Erratum for the Research Article “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers” by J. Poore and T. Nemecek
In table S16 of the Research Article “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers,” the authors erroneously reported a published number from the IMAGE integrated assessment model, indicating that the land no longer required for food production under the “no animal products” scenario could remove 30 Gt CO2-C from the atmosphere (5.5 Gt CO2 yr−1 over 20 years) as it naturally succeeds to forest, shrubland, or grassland. However, the authors misunderstood the reported number, which also included CH4 and N2O emissions, and they considered a time frame that was too short to reflect the carbon dynamics of revegetation.
Again, by using data from the IMAGE model, the potential uptake is 221 Gt CO2-C over 100 years, or 8.1 Gt CO2 on average each year, with continued but lower uptake after 100 years. Seventy-four percent is uptake by vegetation biomass, and 26% is soil carbon accumulation. This carbon uptake is additional to the 6.6 Gt yr−1 of avoided agricultural CO2eq emissions that the authors reported (which is a 49% reduction in the annual emissions of the food sector). In total, the “no animal products” scenario delivers a 28% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of the economy relative to 2010 emissions (table S17). The scenario of a 50% reduction in animal products targeting the highest-impact producers delivers a 20% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Because of the error, the authors did not recognize the true scale of the carbon sink and therefore only included it as a sensitivity in table S16. They have added a sentence to the main text [“In addition to the reduction in food’s annual GHG emissions, the land no longer required for food production could remove ~8.1 billion metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year over 100 years as natural vegetation re-establishes and soil carbon re-accumulates, based on simulations conducted in the IMAGE integrated assessment model (17)”]; adjusted the text describing the second scenario [to read “This achieves 71% of the previous scenario’s GHG reduction (a reduction of ~10.4 billion metric tons of CO2eq per year, including atmospheric CO2 removal by regrowing vegetation)”]; and changed the sensitivity in table S16 to report a sensitivity on the carbon sink, rather than reporting the sink itself. In accordance with these changes, they have also replaced reference 146 and added a new reference, numbered 151.
An unrelated error in the legend to Fig. 3 has also been corrected, replacing “The gray line represents 10th-percentile emissions” with “The gray line represents average emissions.”
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Science
Volume 363 | Issue 6429
22 February 2019
22 February 2019
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Copyright © 2019, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Published in print: 22 February 2019
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Erratum for the Research Article “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers” by J. Poore and T. Nemecek.Science363,eaaw9908(2019).DOI:10.1126/science.aaw9908
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increased impact of plant-based diets
This shows increased impact of plant-based diets.
Short version:
The old figure was 5.5 Gt removed per year. The new figure is 8.1 Gt removed per year.
Long version:
Originally they thought "the land no longer required for food production under the 'no animal products' scenario could remove 30 Gt CO2-C from the atmosphere (5.5 Gt CO2 yr 1 over 20 years)."
After the correction, they found that it would remove even more CO2-C at an average rate of 8.1 Gt per year or 162 Gt CO2-C over 20 years.
For the 20-year period, the old figure was 30 Gt removed and the new figure is 162 Gt removed. So it turns out that over 5 times the carbon is taken out.
Re: This article
Could someone please explain this "correction" in plain English? Does this mean that eating plant-based doesn't have as much impact as was formerly written? (73% carbon reduction vs. 28% or therabouts)?
Either of those numbers is significant, but as a non-scientist wanting to make an impact on the environment (in a POSITIVE way), it would be nice to understand the science!
Thank you,