Retrospective and projected warming-equivalent emissions from global livestock and cattle calculated with an alternative climate metric denoted GWP*

Agustin del Prado; Brian Lindsay; Juan Tricarico

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0288341

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 23, 2023
26 Apr 2023 Decision Letter - Zhaoxia Guo, Editor PONE-D-23-08709Retrospective and projected warming-equivalent emissions from global livestock and cattle calculated with an alternative usage of global warming potentials denoted GWPPLOS ONE Dear Dr. del Prado, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 10 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Zhaoxia Guo Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. 3. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: "This research was partially supported by contributions from (in alphabetical order) Arla Foods, Dairy Australia, Dairy Companies of New Zealand, Dairy Management Inc., Global Dairy Platform, Global Round Table for Sustainable Beef, McDonalds Corporation, and Meat and Livestock Australia. BC3 is supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2022-2025 program and by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness MINECO through BC3 María de Maeztu excellence accreditation 2018–2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/. Agustin del Prado is financed by the programme Ramon y Cajal from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (RYC-2017-22143) and Ikerbasque." We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: "AdP was supported in this study specifically by the Global Dairy Platform (GDP). AdP receive funds by the programme Ramon y Cajal from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (RYC-2017-22143) and Ikerbasque. BL is supported by Global Dairy Platform. JT received salary from Dairy Management Inc. These parties provided funding for the study: Arla Foods, Dairy Australia, Dairy Companies of New Zealand, Dairy Management Inc., Global Dairy Platform, Global Round Table for Sustainable Beef, McDonalds Corporation, and Meat and Livestock Australia The funders had a role in the study design by providing some of the general questions. " Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 4. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability. "Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized. Important: If there are ethical or legal restrictions to sharing your data publicly, please explain these restrictions in detail. Please see our guidelines for more information on what we consider unacceptable restrictions to publicly sharing data: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Note that it is not acceptable for the authors to be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access. We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter. 5. We note that you have included the phrase “data not shown” in your manuscript. Unfortunately, this does not meet our data sharing requirements. PLOS does not permit references to inaccessible data. We require that authors provide all relevant data within the paper, Supporting Information files, or in an acceptable, public repository. Please add a citation to support this phrase or upload the data that corresponds with these findings to a stable repository (such as Figshare or Dryad) and provide and URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers that may be used to access these data. Or, if the data are not a core part of the research being presented in your study, we ask that you remove the phrase that refers to these data. 6. Please remove your figures from within your manuscript file, leaving only the individual TIFF/EPS image files, uploaded separately. These will be automatically included in the reviewers’ PDF. Additional Editor Comments: 1. Please revise the paper title and improve the readability of the paper title. 2. Please make sure that the format ot fhis paper is consistent with the format requirements of PLOSOne. 3. Please improve the quality of figures. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author* 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Using a simple GWP-TCRE framework together with a set of scenarios/assumptions, the authors presented the estimates for the past and projected contribution of livestock/ruminant CH4 emissions to the global temperature. The GWP-TCRE framework is a simplified way to better, even not accurate, quantify the global warming potential for short-lived greenhouse gases like CH4. The topic and the results are interesting and useful for informing climate mitigation pathways involving all major GHGs. The manuscript deserve a publication after some revision. My a few concerns are as follows. (1) Warming contribution from CH4 emissions from livestock sector is the main focus of this study. However, the definition of the CH4 emissions used is confusing across the text. “Livestock”, “cattle”, “cattle and buffalo” were all used casually in the current text, though the emission quantity can be quite different. Livestock emissions including ruminant and monogastric ones; cattle (or beef cattle and dairy cows) and buffaloes are ruminants, while sheep and goats are also ruminants that emitted a substantial part of the livestock CH4 emissions; CH4 emissions are also from pig and poultry, especially manure management. In addition, there are enteric CH4 emissions and those from manure management. It is absolutely necessary to clarify in every place of the manuscript what kinds of CH4 emissions (livestock, ruminant, or cattle only; enteric or including manure management) were accounted and used in the calculation of GWP* and their TCRE. It can also be clarified in a paragraph in the Materials and Methods, and used consistently across the manuscript. (2) A lot of scenarios were set in this study to illustrate the effects of CH4 emissions. Readers will probably get lost during the long description between L197 and L261. It is necessary to provide an overview figure or table to illustrate the setups and especially the rational and the purpose. People can come back to the figure or table when read the super long results section. (3) Most of the figures were consisted with a single line or with several subplot presenting similar information. It is recommended to combine some of the figures e.g., Fig. 1 and 3, or improve the quality and the presentation of the figures, e.g., subplots can be combined into one with three bars for each sensitivity period in Fig. 7. Most current figures were not publishable for their current form. (4) The text is unnecessarily long, which reads like a boring report without focus. I would strongly suggest a substantial shortening of the Results and Discussion section, showing only the core findings and information. For example, numbers that do not trigger further discussion or implications could be neglected. Paragraph between L395 and 405 seems redundant (similar information has been presented in previous sections. Furthermore, there are quite some paragraph that cite several papers with too much details. The text should be precise and concise. (5) A few important terms may be mis-used or mis-phrased. For example, it is not clear what does the “sustained” mean. Sustainable? Or constant? L389 “Tier” rather than “tear level”. Reviewer #2: Your research is interesting, but there are still some problems that confuse me. 1.You mentioned that “These differences are hidden when describing the effects of climate mitigation using annual CO2-e emissions and when targets are based on aggregated annual emission rates” in the research, but I don’t understand “the effects” and the reasons for “the effects”. 2.You mentioned that “Sustained annual reductions in CH4 emissions of 0.31% by the global cattle sector would stabilize their future effect on global temperature while greater reductions would reverse historical past contributions to global warming by the sector in a similar fashion to increasing C sinks”. But I don't know why emitting less CH4 emissions (greater reductions of 0.31%) rather than negative CH4 emissions would “reverse historical temperature impacts from previous decades”. Can you provide some level of details about the conclusion? 3.The feasibility of the target (annual reductions in CH4 emissions of 0.31% by the global cattle sector) and the related measures need to be taken, such as a shift to sustainable diets. 4.The blue line (mentioned in line 559, pp. 34) does not appear in the figure 9. ******** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288341.r001
Revision 1
13 Jun 2023 Author Response COMMENTS TO THE AUTHOR REVIEWER #1: Using a simple GWP-TCRE framework together with a set of scenarios/assumptions, the authors presented the estimates for the past and projected contribution of livestock/ruminant CH4 emissions to the global temperature. The GWP-TCRE framework is a simplified way to better, even not accurate, quantify the global warming potential for short-lived greenhouse gases like CH4. The topic and the results are interesting and useful for informing climate mitigation pathways involving all major GHGs. The manuscript deserve a publication after some revision. Thanks for this positive feedback. My a few concerns are as follows: (1) Warming contribution from CH4 emissions from livestock sector is the main focus of this study. However, the definition of the CH4 emissions used is confusing across the text. “Livestock”, “cattle”, “cattle and buffalo” were all used casually in the current text, though the emission quantity can be quite different. Livestock emissions including ruminant and monogastric ones; cattle (or beef cattle and dairy cows) and buffaloes are ruminants, while sheep and goats are also ruminants that emitted a substantial part of the livestock CH4 emissions; CH4 emissions are also from pig and poultry, especially manure management. In addition, there are enteric CH4 emissions and those from manure management. It is absolutely necessary to clarify in every place of the manuscript what kinds of CH4 emissions (livestock, ruminant, or cattle only; enteric or including manure management) were accounted and used in the calculation of GWP* and their TCRE. It can also be clarified in a paragraph in the Materials and Methods, and used consistently across the manuscript. We agree that it may be confusing why we use different databases for the different analysis. We used livestock CH4 emissions data (all species, enteric and manure) for the long-term analysis (1750-2019) and global cattle (defined as dairy and beef cattle, and buffalo-also enteric and manure, according to FAOstat stats) for shorter analysis (1961-2019). Our main focus would have been “global cattle” if we had had long-term (1750-2019) stats but the long-term stats (1750-2019) are only available for aggregated livestock. Our analysis included both enteric CH4 and manure management CH4. We have tried to clary these points in the text: We have this text in the material and methods section: L104-108. “the retrospective warming added by CH4 emissions from livestock in aggregate and from global cattle (as defined by dairy and beef cattle and buffalo) globally between 1750-2019 and 1961-2019, respectively, and (iii) analyse, using these metrics, the implications on future global temperature change of adopting different CH4 mitigation strategies that lead to warming stabilisation by the global cattle industry.” L114-118 “It must be noted that we used total livestock (including all animal species) CH4 emissions for the long-term retrospective analysis (1750-2019) since data disaggregating livestock emissions by species (i.e. cattle) were not available for the years before 1961. For the short-term analysis (1961-2019) we used historical cattle (dairy and beef) and buffalo CH4 emissions (all together referred as “global cattle”).” We also explained that short term analysis data for CH4 referred to cattle (dairy and beef) and buffalo CH4 emissions together and used the term “Global Cattle” for simplicity purposes meaning both cattle and buffalo. L117-L118 “For the short-term analysis (1961-2019) we used historical cattle (dairy and beef) and buffalo CH4 emissions (all together referred as “global cattle”).” L124-L126 “Short-term (1961-2019) historical cattle and buffalo annual enteric and manure CH4 emissions were obtained from the FAOSTAT database [11]. For simplicity purposes, “global cattle” refers to cattle (dairy and beef) and buffalo in this study.” For both livestock CH4 (long-term analysis) and Global Cattle CH4 (Short-term analysis), we accounted for both of the main sources of CH4: enteric and that from manure management. This is mentioned in: L119-120. “Long-term (1750-2019) historical livestock annual enteric and manure CH4 emissions data were obtained from…”: L124-L125. “Short-term (1961-2019) historical cattle and buffalo annual enteric and manure CH4 emissions were obtained from the FAOSTAT database [11]. “ L164-L166. In figure 2 caption we also now refer to “Global Cattle” for uniformity of terms: New “Fig 2. Methane emissions from global cattle (aggregating dairy and beef cattle and buffalo) (a)…”. (2) A lot of scenarios were set in this study to illustrate the effects of CH4 emissions. Readers will probably get lost during the long description between L197 and L261. It is necessary to provide an overview figure or table to illustrate the setups and especially the rational and the purpose. People can come back to the figure or table when read the super long results section. Thanks for this recommendation. We have elaborated a new table (now Table 1) to clarify the characteristics of each of the scenarios analyses. (3) Most of the figures were consisted with a single line or with several subplot presenting similar information. It is recommended to combine some of the figures e.g., Fig. 1 and 3, or improve the quality and the presentation of the figures, e.g., subplots can be combined into one with three bars for each sensitivity period in Fig. 7. Most current figures were not publishable for their current form. First, we rearranged all figures for best format so now they all have good resolution and 600 dpi. As recommended, we combined Fig 1 and 3 into new Fig 1 and Fig 7 has been combined into one figure (now new Fig 5). (4) The text is unnecessarily long, which reads like a boring report without focus. I would strongly suggest a substantial shortening of the Results and Discussion section, showing only the core findings and information. For example, numbers that do not trigger further discussion or implications could be neglected. Paragraph between L395 and 405 seems redundant (similar information has been presented in previous sections. Furthermore, there are quite some paragraph that cite several papers with too much details. The text should be precise and concise. The text has been shortened as suggested and some citations have been taken away. We also changed the level one headings to match the subtitles within this section to the 5 analysis scenarios listed in the M&M section to make it easier for readers to follow. Some IPCC-based text from the Paragraph L395-405 could be considered as justification for this analysis, so we moved it from the discussion point to the introduction (L81-L90) : “It is recognized that GWP100 shows…”. (5) A few important terms may be mis-used or mis-phrased. For example, it is not clear what does the “sustained” mean. Sustainable? Or constant? L389 “Tier” rather than “tear level”. “Sustained” was meant to be used for reductions in emissions that are constant over time. Now we have amended and clarify this in all text. For all scenarios we have explicitly indicated the % of increase/decrease in annual emissions. For instance, for case study 5: L269-L281. “Analyzing the projected global warming associated with 3 futures global CH4 cattle emission pathways leading to a stabilisation of global temperatures at year 2050 (1990-2050 period) varying in the time and intensity when absolute CH4 emission rates are reduced as follows: (i) fast: large reductions (greater than those required for sustained emission rate reductions: 0.5% decrease per year) in global CH4 cattle emissions are introduced during the first decades (2020-2040) followed by reductions at smaller rates (2040-2050) (0.1% decrease per year). (ii) sustained: reductions in global CH4 cattle emissions in a sustained way starting in 2020 (0.32% decrease per year, constant over time) (iii) delayed: increase in absolute emission rates for the first 2 decades (2020-2040) (0.25% increase per year), followed by large reductions (0.84% decrease per year) in global CH4 cattle emissions are introduced during the last decade (2040-2050). “ “Tear” was a typo. Now we amended to Tier: “depending on the level of methodological complexity used (also denoted as tier level by IPCC (2019)” REVIEWER #2: Your research is interesting, but there are still some problems that confuse me. Thanks for this feedback, we will try to clarify the text to deal successfully with your confusion. 1.You mentioned that “These differences are hidden when describing the effects of climate mitigation using annual CO2-e emissions and when targets are based on aggregated annual emission rates” in the research, but I don’t understand “the effects” and the reasons for “the effects”. L76-78. The sentence has been changed for clarification to. “These differences in temperature change are hidden when calculating and using annual CO2-e emissions to describe the impact of mitigation and targets based on aggregated annual emission rates” 2.You mentioned that “Sustained annual reductions in CH4 emissions of 0.31% by the global cattle sector would stabilize their future effect on global temperature while greater reductions would reverse historical past contributions to global warming by the sector in a similar fashion to increasing C sinks”. But I don't know why emitting less CH4 emissions (greater reductions of 0.31%) rather than negative CH4 emissions would “reverse historical temperature impacts from previous decades”. Can you provide some level of details about the conclusion? First, we updated the % to 0.32% as 0.31% had been obtained with a previous formulation of the GWP* metrics and used in our first manuscript submissions by mistake (only for this case study, the rest of the study GWP* had been used consistently with the latest GWP* version of the formulation). A reduction in annual emission rates will have a different effect on the level of GHG (concentration) in the atmosphere depending on whether a GHG is a short-lived gas (e.g. CH4) or a long-lived gas (e.g. CO2). If it is a long-lived gas, the CO2 level (or concentration) and hence the amount of associated warming to this CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will get to a stable condition (for the first years at least, before starting to decline very slowly) only if we reduce CO2 emissions (net) to 0. So we reach an equilibrium between emissions and sinks. This is what is referred as net-0 CO2. For short-lived gases (e.g. CH4), CH4 is mostly removed from the atmosphere by chemical reaction (reacts with OH- for example) much faster than CO2, persisting for about 12 years (instead of 100s or even 1000s of years as CO2). Hence, small reductions in annual CH4 rates will already lead to a stabilisation of the CH4 concentration in the atmosphere, leading to heat trapping capacities that could have been found decades before that time (reversing historical temperature impacts). This is briefly mentioned in the Introduction section: L 71-L76 “Whereas methane (CH4)’s impacts on temperature varies strongly with time after emissions occur due to its short atmospheric life, CO2’s impact on temperature remains relatively constant for hundreds of years after the emission occurs [7]. Also, CO2, once emitted, leads to increasing global temperature until net-zero CO2 emissions are reached. By contrast, reductions in CH4 emissions lead to reversing warming within a few decades.” This is very well explained in [7] (Cain et al. 2019. npj Clim Atmos Sci. 2019;2: 1–7) in relation with how GWP* metrics can help mimic these GHG different dynamics for short and long-lived GHG. The concept is well known as indicated in Cain et al 2019 and expressed in the text. L78-80. “In fact, GWP* was not developed to capture this behaviour, which was already well known, but to demonstrate that it could be quantified relatively simply while continuing to use the already familiar GWP concept” This is also well explained in recent articles like Cain et al et al. 2021 [6] Paragraph from this article (but not in our article): “CO2 emissions continue increasing global mean temperature until net-zero emissions are reached, with potential for lowering temperatures with net-negative emissions. By contrast, reducing CH4 emissions starts to reverse CH4-induced warming within a few decades. Coming from this Cain et al. 2021 [6] we added this paragraph in the M&M section: L196-L199. Emissions are used from years t (the year for which CO2-we emissions are being calculated) and from t-20 (20 years prior). This allows GWP* to represent the impact of new emissions (which cause strong additional warming), stable emissions (minimal additional warming) and reducing emissions (which reverses some past warming) [6]. The concept is very much shown as results and discussion in new Fig 7, where whereas reduction in CO2 emissions by 1% would still lead to temperatures until 2100 (from about 0.7oC in 2020 to 1.62 oC respect pre-industrial times). The same reduction (1%) for CH4 rates would lead to temperatures from 0.15 oC in 2020 to 0.12 oC in 2020, thus meaning a certain temperature impact reverse to the level of warming that CH4 had caused until the 1970s. 3.The feasibility of the target (annual reductions in CH4 emissions of 0.31% by the global cattle sector) and the related measures need to be taken, such as a shift to sustainable diets. Even though assessing the feasibility of GHG reductions per se is beyond the scope of this article, there is some reference to the type of strategies required and where these strategies may or may not apply: L502-l513. “Reisinger et al. [19] advocated for strategies to reduce CH4 emissions through more efficient production, technological advances and demand side changes, and importantly always carefully considering their interactions with land-based C sequestration. The challenge is that projected growth in livestock production systems and current CH4 emissions from ruminant livestock are greatest in low-and middle-income countries where the nutrient supply to the population could be severely compromised if animal-derived food demand is dramatically shortened. In addition, most production-side mitigation strategies that were designed for developed countries don’t apply to the production systems used in low- and middle-income countries [31] [32]. These socioeconomic and environmental aspects of mitigation were ignored in some studies [33] that explored the climate impact of implementing even more drastic scenarios, such as eliminating animal agriculture.” Additionally, we added a reference in L589 pointing at to some recent study [37] that has evaluated (towards the 1.5-2 oC temperatures objectives of the Paris Agreement) the scope of adopting mitigation measures to reduce CH4 emissions from livestock. 4.The blue line (mentioned in line 559, pp. 34) does not appear in the figure 9. There was a mistake in the final stage of the figure formatting. Now the figure (new Fig 8b) shows a blue line. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288341.r002
26 Jun 2023 Decision Letter - Zhaoxia Guo, Editor Retrospective and projected warming-equivalent emissions from global livestock and cattle calculated with an alternative climate metric denoted GWP* PONE-D-23-08709R1 Dear Dr. del Prado, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Zhaoxia Guo Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The authors well addressed my concerns. I do not have further concerns. This manuscript is a nice piece that worth to be published. Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288341.r003
Formally Accepted
14 Jul 2023 Acceptance Letter - Zhaoxia Guo, Editor PONE-D-23-08709R1 Retrospective and projected warming-equivalent emissions from global livestock and cattle calculated with an alternative climate metric denoted GWP* Dear Dr. del Prado: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Zhaoxia Guo Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288341.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .