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Articles by Tim Searchinger
Exploring the Productivity and Climate Change Mitigation Potential of Transitions From Pasture to Silvopasture in the Eastern United States
Silvopasture, the integration of trees with livestock and forage, has been widely promoted as a major climate mitigation opportunity in the wetter eastern United States. This working paper reviews the evidence behind those claims and asks whether converting eastern United States pasturelands to silvopasture can meaningfully reduce net greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining animal yields, and what strategies could make that realistic.
Opportunities for Methane Mitigation in Agriculture: Technological, Economic and Regulatory Considerations
The Global Methane Pledge aims to reduce global anthropogenic methane emissions by 30% by 2030 relative to 2020 levels. With agriculture contributing nearly half of global methane emissions, reducing emissions from this sector is crucial to achieving climate goals. Methane’s short atmospheric lifetime and high global warming potential make rapid reductions an essential strategy for both near-term climate benefits and long-term sustainability.
Denmark’s Groundbreaking Agriculture Climate Policy Sets Strong Example for the World
Denmark’s groundbreaking new agriculture and climate policy, which taxes greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from livestock production, restores nature and pays farmers to reduce nitrogen pollution, is the world’s most comprehensive national effort to address the environmental challenges of agriculture. Globally, agriculture and associated land use change contribute around one quarter of GHG emissions.
What Economics Does — or Doesn’t — Tell Us About the Climate Consequences of Using Wood - Tree Frog creative
What Economics Does — or Doesn’t — Tell Us About the Climate Consequences of Using Wood By Tim Searchinger and Steve Berry World Resources Institute June 26, 2024 Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building Region: United States To reduce global carbon emissions, should people harvest and use more wood or less? This question underlies the merits burning more wood pellets and constructing more tall wood buildings.
What Economics Does — or Doesn’t — Tell Us About the Climate Consequences of Using Wood
Timothy Searchinger is a Senior Research Scholar at Princeton University and Technical Director for Agriculture, Forestry and Ecosystems at WRI. This article was written in collaboration with Steve Berry, David Swenson Professor of Economics at Yale University and Faculty Director at the Tobin Center for Economic Policy. To reduce global carbon emissions, should people harvest and use more wood or less?
The Global Land Squeeze: Managing the Growing Competition for Land
In this report, WRI researchers explore how rising demand for food, wood and shelter is squeezing land that’s needed for storing carbon and protecting biodiversity. This research uses new modeling to give a true global picture of the carbon opportunity costs for land use and proposes a four-pronged approach–produce, protect, reduce, restore–for sustainably managing the world’s finite land.
Wood Is Not the Climate-friendly Building Material Some Claim it to Be
Because concrete and steel used to construct buildings are a major source of global greenhouse gas emissions, there is growing interest in “mass timber” — a supposedly lower-carbon option — to replace them. New ways of gluing pieces of wood together to form strong beams and structural panels provide opportunities to use wood even in tall buildings. But new research finds that using wood in construction is likely to increase emissions for many decades, even relative to using concrete and steel.
Harvesting Wood Has Overlooked Carbon Costs
July 5, 2023 By Tim Searchinger, Liqing Peng, Richard Waite and Jessica Zionts Cover Image by: ma li/iStock Research papers and policymakers have largely overlooked the contribution that harvesting wood has on fueling climate change, but a closer look tells a much different story. In a paper published in Nature, we estimate that global wood harvests will add 3.5 to 4.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere annually over the coming decades.
6 pressing questions about beef and climate change, answered
This article was originally published of WRI. Beef and climate change are in the news these days, from cows’ alleged high-methane farts (fact check: they’re actually mostly high-methane burps) to comparisons with cars and airplanes (fact check: the world needs to reduce emissions from fossil fuels and agriculture to sufficiently rein in global warming). And as with so many things in the public sphere, it’s easy for the conversation to get polarized.
7 Ways to Support Food Security & the Climate in Ukraine
April 1, 2022 By Craig Hanson, Janet Ranganathan, Edward Davey, Tim Searchinger and Jillian Holzer Cover Image by: zmeypetrov/Shutterstock Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already driven millions of people from their homes and left many without water, power and food. As hostilities continue, the humanitarian and economic consequences will expand far beyond the region, putting potentially millions of people around the world at risk of hunger. And these aren’t just short-term threats.
5 Things to Know About the IEA’s Roadmap to Net Zero by 2050 |
The IEA’s new net-zero model moves the yardstick for achieving net-zero emissions two decades earlier. Photo by Science in HD/Unsplash To avoid the worst impacts of climate change and realize the goals of the Paris Agreement, greenhouse gas emissions should fall to net zero by mid-century and then reach net negative emissions thereafter. Responding to the science, 60 countries, as well as scores of companies and cities, have already adopted net-zero targets, and many more are expected to do so.
A Pathway to Carbon Neutral Agriculture in Denmark
Can the world meet growing demand for food while sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture – and without converting more forests into agriculture? In the World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future, WRI set forth a challenging, global five-course menu of actions to do so. How should a country adapt this menu to its own agricultural context?
Is burning wood for power carbon-neutral? Not a chance
The mammoth pandemic stimulus and spending bill Congress passed last month includes billions of dollars to expand solar, and wind energy. These are good measures to address greenhouse gas emissions. But the bill also contains a rider that would undercut those efforts. A provision added to the bill, pushed for by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, declares that cutting down trees and burning them for energy is carbon-neutral. This, of course, makes no sense.
Europe is wrong. Burning wood for power is not carbon-neutral, and US must not follow
The ReEnergy biomass power plant at Fort Drum, New York, generates electricity by burning waste wood from logging operations mixed with shredded tires. But it is not the world’s energy future. Mary Esch Associated Press file photo The mammoth pandemic stimulus and spending bill Congress passed last week includes billions of dollars to expand solar and wind energy. These are good measures to address greenhouse gas emissions. But the bill also contains a rider that would undercut those efforts.
Is Burning Wood for Power Carbon Neutral? Not a Chance
Biomass plant, Sacramento Valley, California. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. The mammoth pandemic stimulus and spending bill Congress passed last week includes billions of dollars to expand solar, and wind energy. These are good measures to address greenhouse gas emissions. But the bill also contains a rider that would undercut those efforts. A provision added to the bill, pushed for by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), declares that cutting down trees and burning them for energy is carbon-neutral.
Burning wood for power is not carbon-neutral
By Tim Searchinger Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020 | 2 a.m. The mammoth pandemic stimulus and spending bill Congress passed includes billions of dollars to expand solar and wind energy. These are good measures to address greenhouse gas emissions. But the bill also contains a rider that would undercut those efforts. A provision added to the bill, pushed for by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, declares that cutting down trees and burning them for energy is carbon-neutral. This, of course, makes no sense.
Regenerative Agriculture: Good for Soil Health, but Limited Potential to Mitigate Climate Change
EDITOR'S NOTE: Some people also include under “regenerative agriculture” practices primarily aimed at boosting yields (e.g., agroforestry, which integrates trees and shrubs on farmland, and can sequester carbon in soils and vegetation as a co-benefit) and/or practices aimed at regenerating lands that no longer produce food (e.g., reforestation, peatland restoration, riparian buffer zones).
Nations spend $600 billion-plus annually on ag subsidies. Here's how that money could feed a more sustainable future
To both feed the world and solve climate change, the world needs to produce 50 percent more food in 2050 compared to 2010 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds. While government funding has an important role to play, a new World Bank report I wrote with seven co-authors found that agricultural subsidies are doing little to achieve these goals, but have great potential for reform.
Redirecting agricultural subsidies for a sustainable food future
To both feed the world and solve climate change, the world needs to produce 50% more food in 2050 compared to 2010 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds. While government funding has an important role to play, a new World Bank report I wrote with seven co-authors found that agricultural subsidies are currently doing little to achieve these goals, but have great potential for reform. Very little of the world’s massive agricultural subsidies support sustainable farming practices.
Redirecting Agricultural Subsidies for a Sustainable Food Future
To both feed the world and solve climate change, the world needs to produce 50% more food in 2050 compared to 2010 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds. While government funding has an important role to play, a new World Bank report I wrote with seven co-authors found that agricultural subsidies are currently doing little to achieve these goals, but have great potential for reform.
Comparing the Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Dairy and Pork Systems Across Countries Using Land-Use Carbon Opportunity Costs
by Stefan Wirsenius, Tim Searchinger, Jessica Zionts, Liqing Peng, Tim Beringer and Patrice Dumas - May 2020 This paper compares the lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) costs of dairy production across 13 countries and pork production across 10 countries to obtain insights about what causes higher or lower emissions.
Regenerative Agriculture: Good for Soil Health, but Limited Potential to Mitigate Climate Change
A farmer uses a no-till planter. Photo by United Soybean Board/Flickr EDITOR'S NOTE: Some people also include under “regenerative agriculture” practices primarily aimed at boosting yields (e.g., agroforestry, which integrates trees and shrubs on farmland, and can sequester carbon in soils and vegetation as a co-benefit) and/or practices aimed at regenerating lands that no longer produce food (e.g., reforestation, peatland restoration, riparian buffer zones).
Creating a Sustainable Food Future
By 2050, nearly 10 billion people will live on the planet. Can we produce enough food sustainably? World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future shows that it is possible – but there is no silver bullet. This report offers a five-course menu of solutions to ensure we can feed everyone without increasing emissions, fueling deforestation or exacerbating poverty.
Creating a Sustainable Food Future
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Ten breakthrough technologies to feed the world
How can the world feed nearly 10 billion people by 2050 while also advancing economic development, protecting and restoring forests, and stabilising the climate? It won’t be easy and will require major new efforts, but it can be done.
10 Breakthrough Technologies Can Help Feed the World Without Destroying It
Researchers are developing lower-emissions rice varieties, feed additives and other technological innovations to create a more sustainable food system. Photo by Kate Holt/AusAID How can the world feed nearly 10 billion people by 2050 while also advancing economic development, protecting and restoring forests, and stabilizing the climate? It won’t be easy and will require major new efforts, but it can be done.
Impossible burger: A truly tasty plant-based patty might just save the world's forests (opinion)
Timothy D. Searchinger is a research scholar at Princeton University and a senior fellow of the World Resources Institute. Follow him on Twitter: @Tsearchinger. Richard Waite is a research associate at the World Resources Institute. Twitter: @waiterich. The opinions expressed in this commentary are their own. View more opinion articles at CNN. (CNN)Burger King has promised to go national by the end of the year with its Impossible Whopper, a plant-based patty that tastes like the real thing.
6 Pressing Questions About Beef and Climate Change, Answered
Beef and climate change are in the news these days, from cows’ alleged high-methane farts (fact check: they’re actually mostly high-methane burps) to comparisons with cars and airplanes (fact check: the world needs to reduce emissions from fossil fuels and agriculture to sufficiently rein in global warming). And as with so many things in the public sphere lately, it’s easy for the conversation to get polarized.
How to Make Agriculture Carbon-neutral: Lessons from Denmark
May 7, 2021 By Tim Searchinger Cover Image by: Lars Plougmann/Wikimedia Commons Agriculture and related land-use change generate one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Producing the food the world will likely need by 2050 using today’s technologies would triple GHG emissions while destroying most of the planet’s remaining tropical and temperate forests. At the same time, global emissions need to drop to net-zero by mid-century to prevent the worst climate impacts.
Big Data: How to sustainably feed 10 billion people by 2050, in 21 charts
Published on December 8th, 2018 Tagged: agriculture, data, food There is a big shortfall between the amount of food we produce today and the amount needed to feed everyone in 2050. There will be nearly 10 billion people on Earth by 2050—about 3 billion more mouths to feed than there were in 2010. As incomes rise, people will increasingly consume more resource-intensive, animal-based foods.
Creating a Sustainable Food Future
A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050 by Tim Searchinger, Richard Waite, Craig Hanson, Janet Ranganathan, Patrice Dumas and Emily Matthews - December 2018 By 2050, nearly 10 billion people will live on the planet. Can we produce enough food sustainably? The synthesis report of the World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future shows that it is possible – but there is no silver bullet.
How to Sustainably Feed 10 Billion People by 2050, in 21 Charts
There is a big shortfall between the amount of food we produce today and the amount needed to feed everyone in 2050. There will be nearly 10 billion people on Earth by 2050—about 3 billion more mouths to feed than there were in 2010. As incomes rise, people will increasingly consume more resource-intensive, animal-based foods. At the same time, we urgently need to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural production and stop conversion of remaining forests to agricultural land.
Why ‘sustainable forest management’ does not make wood a good climate alternative to fossil fuels
Net forest growth is now holding down the rate of climate change, making forests an invaluable “carbon sink”. Reducing this sink by cutting down more trees adds carbon to the air and makes climate change worse just like burning any other carbon-based fuel, write Tim Searchinger and Wolfgang Lucht. Tim Searchinger is a research scholar at Princeton University. Wolfgang Lucht is a professor at Humboldt University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
6 Pressing Questions About Beef and Climate Change, Answered
Beef and climate change are in the news these days, from cows’ alleged high-methane farts (fact check: they’re actually mostly high-methane burps) to comparisons with cars and airplanes (fact check: the world needs to reduce emissions from fossil fuels and agriculture to sufficiently rein in global warming). And as with so many things in the public sphere, it’s easy for the conversation to get polarized.
Why smart agricultural development is needed in Africa’s savannas
Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s most rapidly growing region. By 2050, the continent’s population will double and per capita GDP income will triple. This combination of people and prosperity means that Africa’s food needs will quadruple. We estimate that satisfying this increased demand will require at least 140 million hectares of new farmland, even if crop yields grow at the high rates predicted by the Food and Agricultural Organisation.
Wasting the savanna
In recent years, as governments have begun to protect tropical forests because of the carbon they store, other vast tropical ecosystems have come under increasing threat. These are the wet savannas, which have a mix of grasses, trees and shrubs and receive enough rainfall to grow crops.
Achieving Replacement Level Fertility
The world’s population will rise from just over 7 billion in 2012 to nearly 9.6 billion by 2050. Most of the world’s regions have already achieved or are close to achieving replacement level fertility. “Replacement level fertility” is the total fertility rate—the average number of children born per woman—at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next, without migration.
3 Unexpected Ways to Improve Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa
This post is the fourth installment of WRI’s blog series, “Creating a Sustainable Food Future.” The series explores strategies to sustainably feed 9 billion people by 2050. All pieces are based on research being conducted for the forthcoming World Resources Report. Check out more pieces in this series. The United Nations’ new population growth projections show that the world is set to reach nearly 9.6 billion by 2050. This growth holds serious implications for global food security.
Avoiding Bioenergy Competition for Food Crops and Land
What is the role of bioenergy in a sustainable food future? The answer must recognize the intense global competition for land, and that any dedicated use of land for bioenergy inherently comes at the cost of not using that land for food, feed, or sustained carbon storage. The world needs to close a 70 percent gap between the crop calories that were available in 2006 and the calorie needs anticipated in 2050.
Why Dedicating Land to Bioenergy Won't Curb Climate Change
This post is part of WRI's blog series, Creating a Sustainable Food Future. The series explores strategies to sustainably feed more than 9 billion people by 2050. All pieces are based on research being conducted for the 2013-2015 World Resources Report. How does bioenergy contribute to a sustainable food and climate future? A new WRI paper finds bioenergy can play a modest role using wastes and other niche fuelstocks, but recommends against dedicating land to produce bioenergy.
More Rice, Less Methane
Reducing flooding in rice paddies can dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and can also help conserve water and boost yields. Photo by IRRI. This post is part of WRI's blog series, Creating a Sustainable Food Future. The series explores strategies to sustainably feed more than 9 billion people by 2050. All pieces are based on research being conducted for the 2013-2014 World Resources Report.
Creating a Sustainable Food Future: Interim Findings
The world’s agricultural system faces a great balancing act. To meet different human needs, by 2050 it must simultaneously produce far more food for a population expected to reach about 9.6 billion, provide economic opportunities for the hundreds of millions of rural poor who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, and reduce environmental impacts, including ecosystem degradation and high greenhouse gas emissions.
Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change
Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels.
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