The impact of beef and soybean protein demand on carbon emissions in Argentina during the first two decades of the twenty-first century

Abstract

We quantified and analyzed the effect that the domestic and international demand for beef and soybean proteins had on carbon emissions in Argentina during the first two decades of the twenty-first century. We also analyzed the influence of both factors on the national deforestation rates. Principal component analysis and simple regression analyses were in turn used to detect components that maximize data variance, and to quantify relevant relationships. Our results show that not all activities considered carbon sources had the same impact on carbon emissions, and not all carbon emissions are equally affected by domestic and international demand of proteins throughout the period 2001–2018. We found a relevant association of both the domestic and international demand with carbon emissions during a first 2001–2009 period, and a less-significant one during a second 2010–2018 period. Deforestation (P <0.01), beef (P <0.05), and soybean production (P> 0.05) were the factors that decreasingly explained carbon emissions. Biased assumptions about the impact of protein demand on carbon emissions in Argentina should be cautiously taken unless they are supported by robust scientific evidence.