Joint CO2 and CH4 accountability for global warming.

ABSTRACT: We propose a transparent climate debt index incorporating both methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. We develop national historic emissions databases for both greenhouse gases to 2005, justifying 1950 as the starting point for global perspectives. We include CO2 emissions from fossil sources [CO2(f)], as well as, in a separate analysis, land use change and forestry. We calculate the CO2(f) and CH4 remaining in the atmosphere in 2005 from 205 countries using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report impulse response functions. We use these calculations to estimate the fraction of remaining global emissions due to each country, which is applied to total radiative forcing in 2005 to determine the combined climate debt from both greenhouse gases in un

SUBMITTER: Smith KR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3732991 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature