Regional production and consumption emissions associated with the Danish livestock products – a CGE multiregional input-output approach

Global protein consumption is expected to rise with the predicted increase in the global population from 7.6 to 9.5 billion in 2050. While production emissions will rise accordingly, they will also partly be driven by higher consumer demand for goods and services. Recent studies have shown the importance of allocating emissions to final consumers based on international trade. Both inter and intra-regional sectoral interactions to satisfy consumer demand result in environmental repercussions such as greenhouse gases emissions embodied in trade. Using a CGE multi-regional input-output model for Denmark, this study presents an environmental extension of the Local interregional (LINE) economic model, a regional input-output model using regional environmental accounts. Denmark is renowned for its agricultural orientation and high production and consumption of animal products. Our analysis comparatively evaluates the regional production and consumption emissions associated with different livestock products in Denmark. We investigate the carbon footprint of different livestock products with the two separate accounting methods (productionand consumption-based accounting) for five Danish regions. The results achieved constitutes the basis for revealing the hotspots for livestock demand-driven regional emissions and provide grounds for local climate policies that may contribute to the reduction of national greenhouse gas emissions and carbon leakages between local regions thereby mitigating climate change (SDG 13) and acidification marine and freshwater systems (SDG 14). Most important, the model will allow for future regional planning of support for more sustainable food production and consumption (SDG 12), by implementing local circular bioresource management and technology systems for local biofertilizer and alternative protein supply chains lowering the CO2 footprint of consumption contributing directly to SDG 13 on climate actions by delivering GHG emission reductions but also mitigating acidification and eutrophication of marine and freshwater systems (SDG 14).