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The wording of the article - and also of the title here - is very misleading. > Methane accounts for half of the average 1.0 degrees C of warming the world su
by top_sigrid 4y ago
The wording of the article - and also of the title here - is very misleading.
> Methane accounts for half of the average 1.0 degrees C of warming the world suffered over the past decade and reducing methane is the fastest strategy available to reduce warming. The United States, in partnership with the European Union, is leading the Global Methane Pledge to reduce overall methane emissions by 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030.
Reducing yearly methane emissions will NOT reduce warming. The article is about reducing the amount of additionally emitted methane in the future.
- phepranto 4y agoHow does reducing emissions not reduce (future) warming? It doesn't revert warming, but that's not being stated here afaict.
- anonporridge 4y agoWhen I read "reduce warming" I interpret that as slow the rate of future warming, not reverse the warming of the past. Since methane is a drastically more potent warming gas than C02, but eventually degrades into C02 on the scale of decades, skipping the decades of heightened warming effect in the atmosphere by burning emitted methane to C0w will have the effect of reducing the rate of future warming, and importantly buy us more time to ultimately solve the problem. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
- marcosdumay 4y agoNo, the title is not misleading that way. The warming caused by methane is proportional to the exponential average of emissions, with a ~20 years half-life. Reducing the rate of emissions literally reduces the total warming from methane. The one point where the article is misleading is that it reduces the warming as long as you keep the effort. If you stop doing it, the warming comes back in ~40 years as if you never did anything. Methane is very different from carbon dioxide, because it doesn't accumulate forever. It tends to break people's intuition.