The global warming potential—the need for an interdisciplinary retrial

Shine, Keith P.

doi:10.1007/s10584-009-9647-6

Cited by 226 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The most common metric is the global warming potential (GWP(τ )), which takes the ratio of the time-integrated radiative forcing of pulse non-CO 2 and CO 2 emissions over a fixed time horizon (τ ), typically 100 years. The GWP(100) was initially intended as a placeholder [10], in large part because of its sensitivity to the arbitrarily selected time horizon [7] (Fig. 1c,d), but it remains the standard metric for technology evaluation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate impacts of energy technologies depend on emissions timing

Edwards

Trancik

2014

Nature Clim Change

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Energy technologies emit greenhouse gases with differing radiative efficiencies and atmospheric lifetimes [1][2][3]. Standard practice for evaluating technologies, which uses the global warming potential (GWP) to compare the integrated radiative forcing of emitted gases over a fixed time horizon [4], does not acknowledge the importance of a changing background climate relative to climate change mitigation targets [5,6]. Here we demonstrate that the GWP misvalues the impact of CH 4 -emitting technologies as mid-century approaches, and we propose a new class of metrics to evaluate technologies based on their time of use. The instantaneous climate impact (ICI) compares gases in an expected radiative forcing stabilization year, and the cumulative climate impact (CCI) compares their integrated radiative forcing up to a stabilization year. Using these dynamic metrics, we quantify the climate impacts of technologies and show that high-CH 4 -emitting energy sources become less advantageous over time. The impact of natural gas for transportation, with CH 4 leakage, exceeds that of gasoline within 1-2 decades for a commonly-cited 3 W/m 2 stabilization target. The impact of algae biodiesel overtakes that of corn ethanol within 2-3 decades, where algae co-products are used to produce biogas and corn co-products are used for animal feed. The proposed metrics capture the changing importance of CH 4 emissions as a climate threshold is approached, thereby addressing a major shortcoming of the GWP for technology evaluation [7,8].Comparing the climate impacts of energy technologies is challenging because they emit differing types and quantities of greenhouse gases, most notably CH 4 and CO 2 , and these gases have dissimilar properties (Fig. 1a,b). Present approaches to technology evaluation use an equivalency metric to convert emissions to their CO 2 -equivalent value [1][2][3]9]. The most common metric is the global warming potential (GWP(τ )), which takes the ratio of the time-integrated radiative forcing of pulse non-CO 2 and CO 2 emissions over a fixed time horizon (τ ), typically 100 years. The GWP(100) was initially intended as a placeholder [10], in large part because of its sensitivity to the arbitrarily selected time horizon [7] (Fig. 1c,d), but it remains the standard metric for technology evaluation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate impacts of energy technologies depend on emissions timing

Edwards

Trancik

2014

Nature Clim Change

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“…First, the emissions of NOx and the SOx now to be reduced actually mitigate global warming (Lauer et al, 2007;Eyring et al, 2010), whereas emissions of black carbon (BC) and methane (CH4) -remaining unrestricted -contribute to global warming (Jacobson, 2010;Bond et al, 2013;Myhre and Shindell, 2013;Fuglestvedt et al, 2014;Lindstad and Sandaas, 2016). Metrics that weight emitted gases according to their global warming potential (GWP), to report them in terms of "CO2 equivalents", have become standard currency to benchmark and communicate the relative and absolute contributions to climate change (Shine, 2009). GWP gives negative weights for emitted exhaust gases and particles that have a cooling effect, and positive weights for those that have a warming effect.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental regulations in shipping: Policies leaning towards globalization of scrubbers deserve scrutiny

Lindstad

Eskeland

2016

Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment

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Emission regulations for Sulphur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) are motivated by health-and other environmental objectives in local and regional settings, while global warming concerns motivate policies for carbon dioxide (CO2). We point out that the direction chosen by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) -to tighten SOx and NOx limits globally -carries important risks. First, extending to a global setting the present regulations in coastal emission control areas (ECAs, in North America and Northern Europe)gives negligible or negative environmental benefits, and raises global warming impacts.Second, 'end-of-pipe' solutions, such as scrubbing and tuning, become dominant responses, and they reduce energy efficiency. Third, the adoption of these end-of-pipe solutions carry risks of deflecting attention from development of cleaner fuels and improving energy efficiency. Distinguishing local environmental benefits from global ones is important in general, and our research concludes that in the case of shipping, this distinction better serves the needs of the local environment, the global climate, and conserves on abatement costs.

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“…The simplicity of the GWP, with the lack of robustness of other metrics, has led to its adoption as the metric for CO 2 -equivalence in the Kyoto protocol, with the consequence of casting the concept in stone (Shine, 2009). Earlier alternative metrics such as those of Hammitt et al (1996) and Kandlikar (1996) have somewhat become forgotten, while there is still active literature on GWP (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of physically- and economically-based CO<sub>2</sub>-equivalences for methane

Boucher

2012

Earth Syst. Dynam.

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Abstract. 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 CO 2 -equivalence should be. We revisit this question by discussing some aspects of physically-based (i.e. globalwarming 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 CO 2 -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 CO 2 -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 CO 2 -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 CO 2 -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 CO 2 prices and CO 2 -equivalences for the stakeholders.

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The global warming potential—the need for an interdisciplinary retrial

Cited by 226 publications

References 20 publications

Climate impacts of energy technologies depend on emissions timing

Climate impacts of energy technologies depend on emissions timing

Environmental regulations in shipping: Policies leaning towards globalization of scrubbers deserve scrutiny

Comparison of physically- and economically-based CO<sub>2</sub>-equivalences for methane

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The global warming potential—the need for an interdisciplinary retrial

Cited by 226 publications

References 20 publications

Climate impacts of energy technologies depend on emissions timing

Climate impacts of energy technologies depend on emissions timing

Environmental regulations in shipping: Policies leaning towards globalization of scrubbers deserve scrutiny

Comparison of physically- and economically-based CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;-equivalences for methane

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Product

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Comparison of physically- and economically-based CO<sub>2</sub>-equivalences for methane