Modeling Agriculture and Land Use in an Integrated Assessment Framework

Abstract

The Agriculture and Land Use (AgLU) model is a top-downeconomic model with just enough structure to simulate globalland-use change and the resulting carbon emissions over one century.These simulations are done with and without a carbon policy representedby a positive carbon price. Increases in the carbon price createincentives for production of commercial biomass that affect thedistribution of other land types and, therefore, carbon emissionsfrom land-use change. Commercial biomass provides a link betweenthe agricultural and energy systems. The Integrated Assessmentof Climate Protection Strategies (ICLIPS) core model uses AgLUto provide estimates of carbon emissions from land-use changeas one component of total greenhouse gas emissions. Each majorland-use type is assigned an average carbon density used to calculatea total carbon stock; carbon emissions from land-use change arecalculated as the change in carbon stock between time periods.Significant carbon emissions from land-use change are presenteven in the reference scenario. An aggressive ICLIPS mitigationscenario results in carbon emissions from land-use change upto 800 million metric tons per year above the AgLU referencescenario.