Bilogical Emissions and North-South Policies

This chapter demonstrates that potential problems with implementing the State Department proposal. It explores various estimates of total CH₄ emissions from bovine animals and discusses the relative addition to greenhouse-gas warming from this one source. The implications of pursuing C0₂ reductions alone vs. pursuing a comprehensive approach raise important questions that touch on North-South political issues. The Montreal Protocol was the first substantive international agreement to reduce future emissions of a potent family of greenhouse gases, the chlorofluorocarbons. P. Crutzen et al. use an energetic approach to calculating worldwide CH₄ emissions. The importance of the bovine-animal contribution to climate change can be overemphasized by ignoring the source of the carbon content of CH₄. Methane released from ruminant animals is not the same as CH₄ released from sources such as leakage from natural-gas pipelines or from coal-mining operations. Of the original carbon intake, 66% is returned almost immediately to the atmosphere, some of it as CH₄, some as C0₂.