Exploring the carbon footprint of Chinese beef systems – a life‑cycle assessment, decoupling analysis and spatial effects

Introduction China’s beef cattle industry is currently in a phase of expansion, while its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission characteristics remain insufficiently elucidated. To fill this research gap, this study employed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to quantify the carbon footprint of beef cattle production across provinces in mainland China during the period 2002–2022. Methods The analysis encompassed total GHG emissions across three farming scales—small-scale (1–49 heads), medium-scale (50–500 heads), and large-scale (>500 heads)—classified by annual slaughter volume, and divided the entire production system into four stages: feed cultivation, enteric fermentation, manure management, and processing and transportation. Results Large-scale operations exhibited relatively lower carbon intensity, with an average of 23.71 kg CO 2 e per kilogram of beef, whereas all three scales demonstrated a fluctuating yet gradually increasing trend over the study period. Enteric fermentation emerged as the dominant emission source, with an annual average of 268.84 TgCO 2 e. Methane consistently accounted for the largest proportion of GHG emissions, averaging 73.59% of the annual total. Spatially, both total emissions and various carbon intensity indicators showed a westward shift, with western regions lagging behind eastern regions in emission reduction performance. Decoupling analysis revealed that for most provinces from 2002 to 2022, GHG emissions from beef cattle production grew in tandem with the output value of the cattle industry. Spatial regression further identified significant agglomeration effects, with carbon intensity being significantly influenced by the economic level of the beef cattle sector, rural per capita disposable income, the share of the cattle industry in the regional economy, and grain yield.