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Unburned methane oxidizes into CO2 in about 10 years, where as excess C02 persists pretty much indefinitely. Calling natural gas "much worse" is misleading. O

• DennisP 7y ago
  Methane doesn't entirely oxidize to CO2 in ten years. It has a half-life, so it gradually tails off. The net warming impact of methane over 100 years is 34 times higher than the warming impact of CO2: https://unfccc.int/news/new-methane-signs-underline-urgency-to-reverse-emissions https://unfccc.int/news/new-methane-signs-underline-urgency-... Over just twenty years, the impact of methane is substantially higher than that: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-greenhouse-gas-is-methane/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-gree... This matters, because the big concern with climate is exceeding a tipping point, where natural feedbacks like ice melt, emissions from melting permafrost, and forest fires cause the planet to warm several degrees further with no more help from us. We see that happening several times in geological history, where small amounts of warming kick off a positive feedback cycle that adds several more degrees. Warming over the next few decades will pretty much determine whether that happens to us. After fifty years, hopefully we'll have a zero-carbon economy, but if we've already tipped into a warming cycle by then, it won't matter.