The role of agriculture in energy and climate modelling

This study conducts a structured desk-based literature review to assess how agriculture is currently represented in IAMs. While other major economic sectors such as transport, buildings and industry are commonly analysed in long-term decarbonization studies, the agriculture sector remains less explicitly treated, despite being one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonize due to its reliance on fossil fuels. The overarching goal of this study is to identify whether existing IAMs represent agriculture as a distinct final energy demand sector, and to what extent they currently capture: i) its direct and indirect energy use, ii) its greenhouse gas emissions, and iii) its interactions with the broader energy system under decarbonization policies. Our methodology consists of the following steps:i) Review of IAMC Documentation and Model Description Papers: We begin by systematically examining the documentation and publishing model description papers of the IAMs included in the [] database and related academic literature. ii) Screening for sectoral structure and energy demand categorization: each IAM is screened for how it categorises final energy demand sectors. We record whether the agriculture sector is represented explicitly (e.g., as a separate demand sector akin to buildings, transport and industry) or implicitly (e.g., aggregated into broader sectors like ‘other demand’). We also examine the granularity of energy flows attributed to agriculture, such as diesel for machinery, electricity use, energy for fertilizer production (where endogenized), and heat use, to determine the extent of energy system integration. iii) Assessment of emissions coverage: we evaluate how each model accounts the emissions from agriculture, including energy-related emissions and where relevant, non-energy emissions (e.g., CH4, N2O from livestock or fertilizer use). While non-CO2 gases are not the main focus, their presence is noted when they are linked to energy use (e.g., fertilizer production emissions modeled in the industrial sector vs. agriculture). Particular attention is paid to whether the models include mitigation options or assume exogenous emissions pathways. iv) the findings are synthesized into a comparative matrix