The anticipated impacts of climate change on grassland systems and appropriate management responses have been reviewed extensively, though the emphasis has been on European temperate and North American rangeland systems.

This paper focuses on the following areas: reducing methane emissions from ruminant animals (cattle, sheep) by modification of plant composition; reducing nitrous oxide emissions by making the use of nitrogen more efficient both in terms of going from soil to plant and in the animal; plant breeding may also enhance carbon sequestration in grasslands by focusing both on below ground traits of importance and on the composition of material returned to the soil as litter; and the processes involved in fertiliser production, particularly nitrogen fertilisers, result in considerable greenhouse gas