Harwatt and Hayek, 2019
Harwatt, H., & Hayek, M. (2019). Eating away at climate change with negative emissions: Repurposing UK agricultural land to meet climate goals. Harvard Law School, Harvard.
We estimate the CDR potential of returning UK land currently used for animal agriculture to
forest cover in two scenarios:
- Our first scenario maximises CDR by restoring land currently under pasture and cropland used to produce farmed animal feed to forest.
- Our second scenario trades off some CDR in order to keep all current cropland in production, allowing for the repurposing of animal feed cropland for increased and diversified fruit and vegetable production for human consumption, therefore maximising food self-sufficiency for the UK.
The remaining cropland in both scenarios is sufficient to provide more than the recommended protein and calories for each person in the UK. In scenario 2, reforesting land currently devoted to pasture results in CDR of 3,236 million tonnes CO 2 , equal to offsetting 9 years of current UK CO 2 emissions. In scenario 1, extending reforestation to include animal feed croplands increases the
CDR to 4,472 million tonnes CO 2 , offsetting 12 years of current UK CO 2 emissions. In relation
to the 1.5°C budget, CDR extends the permissible budget by 75% to 103%, for scenarios 2 and
1 respectively, up to 2050.
Restoring agricultural land currently used for farmed animals back to native forest would contribute substantially to aligning UK GHGs with the Paris Agreement, and provide new opportunities for alternative protein production, fruit and vegetable provisions, and enhanced food security. Reforestation would transform the UK landscape, providing additional benefits including habitats for the reintroduction of wildlife. The multitude of potential benefits provides opportunities for joining up policy across climate change mitigation, agriculture, food, public health and rewilding.