Offsetting Ongoing Methane Emissions --- An Alternative to Emission Equivalence Metrics

The Global Warming Potential (GWP) has been widely adopted as a metric for comparing the climate impact of different greenhouse gases. As has been frequently noted, there are many problems with using GWPs to define emission equivalence in spite of the use of GWPs for this purpose in contexts such as the Kyoto Protocol. We propose that for methane, rather than define emission equivalence, the appropriate comparison is between ongoing emissions of 0.9 to 1.0 kg of CH₄ per year and one-off emissions of 1 tonne of carbon. This approach represents an approximate solution to the inverse problem of defining a forcing equivalent index (FEI) that gives exact equivalence of radiative forcing over a range of timescales. In our approach, if ongoing methane emissions are offset by a one-off carbon removal that is built up with 40-year e-folding time, then the result is close to radiatively neutral over periods from years to centuries. In contrast, the GWP provides radiative equivalence (in integrated terms) only at a single time, with large discrepancies at other times. Our approach also follows from consideration of greenhouse gas stabilisation, since stabilising atmospheric CO₂ requires an approximate cap on total emissions, while stabilising methane requires stabilisation of ongoing emissions. Our quantitative treatment recognises that, on time scales of centuries, removal of 1 tonne of carbon only lowers the atmospheric carbon content by 0.3 to 0.35 tonnes. We discuss the implications for rangeland grazing systems. In the absence of effective mitigation techniques for methane from rangeland systems, this approach may provide an attractive offset mechanism in spite of requiring that woody vegetation be established and maintained over about 15% of the landscape, or an equivalent amount of carbon storage in soil.