As Gates explains in a recent post on his GatesNotes blog, agriculture is, by sector, the second largest supplier of greenhouse gasses. It generates 24% of the harmful fumes associated with climate change, just 1% less than energy generation:
There’s more carbon in soil than in the atmosphere and all plant life combined. That’s not a big deal when left to its own devices. But when soil gets disturbed–like it does when you convert a forest into cropland–all that stored carbon gets released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. That’s one reason why deforestation alone is responsible for 11% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
Bill Gates: “Agriculture is second largest supplier of greenhouse gas”