Estimation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Absorption from the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use Sector in the Monomodal and Bimodal Rainfall Forest Agroecological Zones of Cameroon

Abstract

This greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting study of the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use sector assesses carbon emissions and absorption for the period 2010 to 2018 in the Monomodal and Bimodal rainfall agroecological zones. The methodological approach used for GHG emissions calculations in the Livestock category is the one proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 guidelines, taking into account the national systems of other countries. In general, Tier 1 has been used for the calculation of emissions. Emissions/removals are calculated by integrating the activity data of the different sectors considered in the IPCC software. In the subcategory of land use change, the SEPAL platform and ArcGis 10.6 software were used to download and process the images.  In addition, the Peng (2000) equation was used to assess the soil organic carbon stock. Emissions from the two agroecological zones are 281,541.3 GgCO2Eq and absorptions are -2,924,841.22 GgCO2Eq. The potential carbon stock that can be recovered in the two agroecological zones is -2,643,299.92 GgCO2Eq. It is clear that these two agroecological zones absorb more than they emit. These results show that the Bimodal and Monomodal rainfall agroecological zones have a high absorption potential that Cameroon could use in the framework of internationally transferable mitigation results.