(415c) Dynamic Life-Cycle Analysis of Short-Lived Greenhouse Gases: Paving the Way for Improved Policy and Decision-Making

The most common metric used to quantify the individual impact of greenhouse gases is the global warming potential (GWP). Practitioners typically select a GWP time horizon of 100 or 20 years when developing guidance for decarbonization initiatives. However, short-lived pollutants such as methane have atmospheric interactions that reduce their lifespan when compared to more stable pollutants such as carbon dioxide, and the dynamic impact analysis of gaseous climate pollutants is of remarkable importance when understanding temporal aspects of decarbonization scenarios. Alternative metrics with more complicated mathematical approaches have been proposed to represent the climate effects of short-lived climate forcers more rigorously.

In this study, we apply several metrics described in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report to analyze a set of decarbonization scenarios that correspond to cases in which methane emissions from the oil and gas sector in the US decline such that they match the commitments of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) held in Glasgow and the Global Methane Pledge. Our results provide guidance on which metrics are most appropriate, taking practicality and reliability into consideration.