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| Titel |
Comparison of physically- and economically-based CO2-equivalences for methane |
| VerfasserIn |
O. Boucher |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
2190-4979
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Earth System Dynamics ; 3, no. 1 ; Nr. 3, no. 1 (2012-05-22), S.49-61 |
| Datensatznummer |
250000849
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/esd-3-49-2012.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| There is a controversy on the role methane (and other short-lived species)
should play in climate mitigation policies, and there is no consensus on what an
optimal methane CO2-equivalence should be. We revisit this question by
discussing some aspects of physically-based (i.e. global-
warming potential or GWP and global temperature change potential or GTP)
and socio-economically-based climate metrics. To this effect we use
a simplified global damage potential (GDP) that was introduced by
earlier authors and investigate the uncertainties in the methane
CO2-equivalence that arise from physical and socio-economic
factors. The median value of the methane GDP comes out very close to the
widely used methane 100-yr GWP because of various compensating effects.
However, there is a large spread in possible methane CO2-equivalences
from this metric (1–99% interval: 10.0–42.5;
5–95% interval: 12.5–38.0) that is essentially due to
the choice in some socio-economic parameters (i.e. the damage cost
function and the discount rate). The main factor differentiating the
methane 100-yr GTP from the methane 100-yr GWP and the GDP is the fact that
the former metric is an end-point metric, whereas the latter are cumulative
metrics. There is some rationale for an increase in the methane
CO2-equivalence in the future as global warming unfolds, as
implied by a convex damage function in the case of the GDP metric.
We also show that a methane CO2-equivalence based on a pulse emission
is sufficient to inform multi-year climate policies and emissions reductions,
as long as there is enough visibility on CO2 prices and
CO2-equivalences for the stakeholders. |
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