Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Indicators journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind Original Articles Relationship between climate change and low-carbon agricultural production: A case study in Hebei Province, China Yuping Bai a,b,c , Xiangzheng Deng a,b,c, ⁎ , Sijian Jiang a,b,c , Zhe Zhao d , Yi Miao e a Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China b Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China c University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100149, China d School of Economics & Management, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China e College of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Climate change Carbon emission Low-carbon agricultural production efficiency Agroecosystem Hebei ABSTRACT With the increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the atmosphere, global greenhouse effects have in- tensified, thereby contributing to climate change. Agriculture contributes to climate change by increasing GHG emissions, and climate change in turn affects agricultural production. In this paper, we calculated carbon emissions and sequestration of agriculture in the 142 counties of Hebei Province, China, and analyzed their spatiotemporal distributions during 2000–2010. Considering net carbon emissions as an undesirable output, we then measured low-carbon agricultural production efficiency using a stochastic directional distance function. We further explored the impacts of climate change on low-carbon agricultural production. We found that carbon emissions in agriculture increased by 15.85% (650 million tons) during 2000–2010, while carbon sequestration in agroecosystems increased by 33.82% (13.8 million tons). The annual average low-carbon agricultural pro- duction efficiency increased by 3.03%. There were distinct disparities of efficiency among cities, with the highest efficiency in Chengde and Shijiazhuang. The efficiency in southeastern areas was lower than that in the northwest, owing to the increased carbon emissions. Temperature and precipitation had a positive effect on efficiency in Hebei, whereas extreme weather events caused lower efficiency. The results provide valuable re- ferences for developing sustainable, climate-resilient and adaptive agriculture under changing climatic condi- tions. 1. Introduction With the increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the atmo- sphere, the global greenhouse effect has intensified, thereby con- tributing to climate change and a series of environmental and ecolo- gical problems. GHG emissions have a dramatic impact on human wellbeing (Chen et al., 2013). The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5, 2013) indicates that GHG emissions from human activity are the main reason for global warming. Secondary and tertiary industries are the leading sectors for generating carbon emissions (Wang et al., 2016). However, the rapid development of agriculture accelerates global cli- mate change. Agriculture directly contributes 10%–12% of global an- thropogenic GHG emissions (Smith et al., 2008; Nayak et al., 2015). Carbon emissions from agriculture account for 16% to 17% of GHG emissions in China (Tian et al., 2012), and about 6% to 7% in the United States (Johnson et al., 2007). With the acceleration of agri- cultural modernization, increasing agricultural inputs and greater use of agricultural machines have increased carbon emissions in China. Agroecosystems have an important role in carbon sequestration (Álvaro-Fuentes and Paustian, 2011; Lal, 2011; Zhan et al., 2012). Crops can absorb carbon dioxide emissions through photosynthesis, which effectively reduces carbon emissions to the atmosphere (Hutchinson et al., 2007). Carbon emission reduction responses to climate change have be- come globally recognized. Although carbon emissions from agriculture are lower than those from secondary and tertiary industry, the potential of carbon reduction in agroecosystems and the positive external effects of carbon reduction cannot be ignored (Smith et al., 2000; Vlek et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2013). Carbon reduction in agriculture through the use of organic fertilizers and low-carbon technology improves soil nu- trients and agroecosystem productivity, which is important in devel- oping sustainable, low-carbon and climate-resilient agriculture (Meisterling et al., 2009; Beddington et al., 2011; Pathak and Aggarwal, 2012). However, the performance of low-carbon agricultural https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.04.003 Received 12 June 2017; Received in revised form 24 February 2018; Accepted 2 April 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. E-mail address: dengxz@igsnrr.ac.cn (X. Deng). Ecological Indicators xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx 1470-160X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Bai, Y., Ecological Indicators (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.04.003