Drivers of GHG Emissions in Major Agricultural Emitter Countries Across the World

Background: Agriculture impacts the economy and society globally. However, it also contributes to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emission significantly. It poses challenges to sustainability amidst growing population and rising food demands. Thus, to understand the factors affecting agriculture GHG emission plays an important role in designing effective mitigation strategies. Methods: This study analyzes the drivers of agriculture GHG emission for top emitters across the World from 1992 to 2022 by disintegrating the emission into agriculture emission intensity effect, agriculture structure effect, productivity effect, mechanization effect and the labor effect. Also, to assess and track the pattern of sustainability across countries over the period of time, a sustainability index (SI) was constructed. Result: The results showed that the sustainability index for India increased till 2013-15 and decreased thereafter. For rest of the top emitters, it increased throughout indicating unsustainability. The absolute changes in emission were driven by agricultural emission intensity effect, structure effect, productivity effect, mechanization effect and labor effect.