Reduction of emissions from Brazilian cattle raising and the generation of energy: Intensification and confinement potentials

The identification of the main sources of anthropic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) associated with the mitigation and removal of these emissions has become an important instrument in the attenuation of the climatic changes predicted by the IPCC. The largest emission source in Brazil is forest conversion. This land use change has always had a strong relationship with the expansion of agriculture, an activity of great importance in the country, which has the largest commercial cattle herd in the planet. Following the considerable reduction in emissions from deforestation, agriculture has been since 2010 the most important source (MCTI (Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação), 2013. Brasília: Ministério daCiência, Tecnologia e Inovação, Brasil). Seeking to discover the possibilities of altering the emissions profile in the agricultural sector, four scenarios were developed related to how this is dealt with in the beef cattle sector, calculating the potential removal of carbon from the atmosphere through natural regeneration of biomes. The results suggest that picketing and rotation scenario has the greatest potential, with a carbon reduction of 17.7 Gt CO2eq, while the shared raising with grain legumes scenario has the lowest calculated reduction potential of 7.1 Gt CO2eq was calculated. The animal confinement scenario had an intermediary reduction potential of 8.3 Gt CO2eq. The mosaic of methods scenario, in which it is attempted to simulate the parallel adoption of the measures proposed in all other scenarios, had a reduction potential of 13.1 Gt CO2eq. In the scenarios where animal confinement occurs, the treatment of waste with biodigestion allows the generation of biogas and biofertilizers, contributing to an increase in the potential carbon reduction.