Exploring temporal aspects of climate change effects due to bioenergy

Hub researchers Sam Cooper (University of Bath), Andrew Welfle (University of Manchester), Mirjam Röder (Aston University), Marcelle McManus (University of Bath) and Rowan Green (University of Bath) have co-authored the paper ‘Exploring temporal aspects of climate-change effects due to bioenergy’ with Laura Hattam (University of Bath), published in the Special Issue of the journal Biomass and Bioenergy, titled “Building a sustainable biofuels industry”.

Greenhouse gas emissions associated with bioenergy are often temporally dispersed and can be a mixture of long-term forcers (such as carbon dioxide) and short-term forcers (such as methane). These factors affect the timing and magnitude of climate-change impacts associated with bioenergy in ways that cannot be clearly communicated with a single metric. This is critical as key comparisons that determine incentives and policy for bioenergy are based upon climate-change impacts expressed as “carbon dioxide equivalent”. This paper explores these issues further, presents a spreadsheet tool to facilitate quick assessment of these temporal effects and examines alternative ways to consider “carbon dioxide equivalence”.

The paper is available online via Elsevier and is free to access in full until November 24, 2020.

More information on this topic can be found in the recording of our webinar that explored temporal and accounting aspects of greenhouse gas emissions, held online in June 2020.

If you have any questions about the paper or would like more information, please get in touch at supergen-bioenergy@aston.ac.uk.