Briefing paper: Greenhouse gas emissions – timing matters!
Greenhouse gases cause climate change. However, the actual climate change effects occur after the emissions that cause them, and the variation with time of these effects is important in understanding their potential impact.
This briefing paper highlights a number of key findings, including that:
- Using Global Warming Potential (GWP) to establish CO2 equivalence doesn’t capture temporal variation
- Delaying emissions affects their climate impacts
- Different greenhouse gases have different impacts that vary relative to each other with time
- Temperature effects and heating effects are not always the same.
Sam Cooper, lead author of the report, has developed a simple spreadsheet tool which is available for lifecycle assessment practitioners to quickly assess whether temporal aspects of greenhouse gas results are relevant and should be reported upon.
Download the full briefing paper below.
Greenhouse gas emissions – timing matters!
The authors of the paper are Sam Cooper, Rowan Green, Laura Hattam and Marcelle McManus from the University of Bath; Mirjam Röder from Aston University; and Andrew Welfle from the University of Manchester.
Webinar on temporal and accounting aspects of greenhouse gas emissions
The webinar will introduce key findings from this paper and another on the accounting aspects of GHG emissions.
