What percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions comes from agriculture, forestry, and other land use?

You're right—it’s 22%

Addressing the challenges of climate change often centers on shifting to renewable energy sources and reducing carbon pollution—two essential actions to maintain a livable planet. Emissions from energy make up a large portion of our greenhouse gas emissions, but another crucial element often gets overlooked: changing the way we use land.

We’ve altered entire landscapes to produce everything from food and clothing to paper and fuel. And when we slash and burn forests, drain mangroves, or plow up grasslands, we release into the atmosphere heat-trapping carbon dioxide that plants, trees, and soil once captured and stored safely in the ground.

There is no viable global solution to climate change without improving the ways we use land.

Businesses, for example, can shrink their carbon footprints by ensuring that the making of their product does not involve cutting down forests or destroying habitats as it moves from source to market. Farmers and ranchers can also use climate-smart methods—like planting cover crops and using more precise and efficient irrigation—to produce enough food for everyone while also keeping carbon in the ground. And by rehabilitating soils and reforesting lands that have been degraded or cleared, we can remove even more of that carbon from the atmosphere.

Learn more about why land matters in the fight against climate change.