Skip to content

New definitions of emissions in AFOLU sector for comparison with NGHGIs#384

Open
tgasser wants to merge 3 commits into
IAMconsortium:mainfrom
tgasser:luc-em-def
Open

New definitions of emissions in AFOLU sector for comparison with NGHGIs#384
tgasser wants to merge 3 commits into
IAMconsortium:mainfrom
tgasser:luc-em-def

Conversation

@tgasser

@tgasser tgasser commented Dec 22, 2025

Copy link
Copy Markdown

This is the first of two PRs to initiate a change in the AFOLU-related reporting, following a community-wide consultation carried out within the NewPathways HEU project.

It introduces CO2-specific variables, thereby splitting CO2 and non-CO2 definitions of AFOLU emissions. It also attempts to clean up land-related subcategories, notably fires.

It does not change anything regarding gross emissions variables, as this should be part of a broader effort that includes all sectors.

There's an obvious loss of backward compatibility, although only through renaming as all previously existing subcategories should still be available.

Discussed notably with @flohump, @strefler, but final suggestions my own.

Resulting definitions file attached: definitions_luc_em_def.xlsx.


List of changes:

  1. Removed Agricultural Waste Burning and Agriculture subcategories for CO2.
    Rationale: these should be zero by definition for CO2 because climate-neutral, removing prevents adding possibly non-zero values to anthropogenic emissions.

  2. Renamed Land subcategory to LULUCF, and introduced sub-level categories following IPCC 2006 guidelines' land types) + Deforestation.
    Rationale: comparison with Grassi et al.'s NGHGI database for CO2 requires at least Forest Land and Deforestation; HWPs already present; Wetlands important for non-CO2; other subcategories introduced for completeness but can always be ignored.

  3. Fires were moved two levels up in the tree to Emissions|{species}|Fires and removed for CO2.
    Rationale: only explicit fire management should be included in AFOLU; since it is very unclear whether these are anthropogenic or natural fires we want to force the user to think about it; CO2 removed altogether because either climate-neutral (grassland), already in LULUCF (deforestation fires), or supposed to be in the natural response (other forest or peat fires); non-CO2 may still be necessary for ScenarioMIP (@jkikstra?).

  4. Introduced CO2|AFOLU [NGHGI]|Natural Flux Over Managed Land as the correction term that allows translation from model/scientific definition to NGHGIs', optionally split over the same land categories as the LULUCF term.
    Rationale: since this represents only natural processes (response to CO2, climate change, etc.), only a few IAMs can estimate it currently, but it is a necessary component of the total CO2|AFOLU [NGHGI] flux.

  5. Introduced CO2|AFOLU [NGHGI] and Kyoto Gases|AFOLU [NGHGI] aggregates that are CO2|AFOLU and Kyoto Gases|AFOLU + CO2|AFOLU [NGHGI]|Natural Flux Over Managed Land.
    Rationale: for completeness and partially solves issue 374.

File structure changes:

  • split out the AFOLU sector into a new file (from emissions to emissions-afolu)
  • created a level-2-species-no-CO2 tag file

Other change:

  • corrected level 0 species' units (because used in a previous version, but not used in the end -- thought I'd leave it here anyway)

@flohump

flohump commented Jun 26, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

@tgasser — this PR carries Gross Removals|CO2|AFOLU|Intentional/Unintentional
over unchanged, but I think those two sub-categories should be dropped rather than
relocated: they've been reported only patchily across ScenarioMIP and the
distinction doesn't hold up (reasoning and a State of CDR reference in #224).
Ideally we'd handle this as part of this PR, to avoid merge conflicts on the same
AFOLU block — but I'm happy to open a separate PR if you prefer. Also tagging @strefler and @danielhuppmann here.

@strefler

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Agree on removing the intentional / unintentional categories. I can't judge though in which PR this would be placed best.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

3 participants