Indicate separate contributions of long-lived and short-lived greenhouse gases in emission targets
Indicate separate contributions of long-lived and short-lived greenhouse gases in emission targets
Myles R. Allen1, Glen P. Peters2, Keith P. Shine3, Christian Azar4, Paul Balcombe5 et al.
1 School of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
2 CICERO Centre for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norway
3 Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, UK
4 Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden
5 Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
Despite our robust understanding of the fundamental climate science, the common approach of reporting multiple greenhouse gases as combined ‘carbon dioxide equivalents’ obscures how temperature will change over time due to different emissions. This issue is particularly pronounced for activities that generate methane emissions, such as ruminant livestock production, due to the short atmospheric lifetime of the gas. In this paper, a large group of scientists working on climate change and greenhouse gas emission metrics note that separate reporting of shorter- and longer-lived gases, with lifetimes on the order of decades and centuries, respectively, would overcome the most significant limitations and improve transparency of any emission reporting.
Publication details
Allen, M.R, Peters, G.P., Shine, K.P. et al. Indicate separate contributions of long-lived and short-lived greenhouse gases in emission targets. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science 5, 5 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-021-00226-2
