Pastures, on which ruminant livestock graze, occupy one third of the earth’s surface. Removing livestock from pastures can support climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration in regrowing vegetation and recovering soils, particularly in potentially forested areas. However, this would also decrease food and fiber production, generating a tradeoff with pasture productivity and the ruminant meat production pastures support. We evaluate the magnitude and distribution of this tradeoff globally, called the “carbon opportunity intensity” of pastures, at a 5-arcminute resolution. We find that removing beef–producing cattle from high–carbon intensity pastures could sequester 34 (22 to 43) GtC i.e. 125 (80 to 158) GtCO 2 into ecosystems, which is an amount greater than global fossil CO 2 emissions from 2021–2023. This would lead to only a minor loss of 13 (9 to 18)% of the global total beef production on pastures, predominantly within high- and upper-middle-income countries. If areas with low–carbon intensity pastures and less efficient beef production simultaneously intensified their beef production to 47% of OECD levels, this could fully counterbalance the global loss of beef production. The carbon opportunity intensity can inform policy approaches to restore ecosystems while minimizing food losses. Future work should aim to provide higher-resolution estimates for use at local and farm scales, and to incorporate a wider set of environmental indicators of outcomes beyond carbon.

中文翻译：

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通过移除或强化以牧场为基础的牛肉生产实现碳封存的机会


反刍动物牲畜吃草的牧场占据了地球表面的三分之一。将牲畜从牧场中赶走可以通过碳封存来支持减缓气候变化，以恢复植被生长和恢复土壤，特别是在潜在的森林地区。然而，这也会降低食品和纤维的产量，从而在牧场生产力和反刍动物肉生产牧场支持之间产生权衡。我们以 5 弧分的分辨率评估这种权衡在全球范围内的规模和分布，称为牧场的“碳机会强度”。我们发现，将产肉牛从高碳强度牧场中移走可以将 34（22 至 43）GtC，即 125（80 至 158）GtCO 2 封存到生态系统中，这比 2021 年至 2023 年全球化石 CO 2 排放量还要多。这将只导致全球牧场牛肉总产量的 13%（9 至 18）% 的小损失，主要在高收入和中高收入国家。如果拥有低碳强度牧场和牛肉生产效率较低的地区同时将其牛肉生产集约化到经合组织水平的 47%，这可以完全抵消全球牛肉产量的损失。碳机会强度可以为恢复生态系统的政策方法提供信息，同时最大限度地减少粮食损失。未来的工作应旨在提供更高分辨率的估计值，以便在地方和农场规模使用，并纳入更广泛的碳以外的结果环境指标。