When people talk about climate change, the planet-warming gas that invariably comes to mind is carbon dioxide.
But carbon dioxide (CO2) isn’t the only greenhouse gas (GHG) to worry about. Other gases like methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) can have a much more powerful effect in heating our atmosphere. For example, methane emissions from natural gas leaks, agriculture and landfills warm the planet with an intensity 28 times that of the same amount of carbon dioxide over a 100-year time horizon.
Unabated, these powerful gases can contribute to potentially irreversible climate tipping points such as ice-free Arctic summers, the collapse of coral reefs and runaway warming caused by permafrost thaw. On the other hand, bold measures to end non-CO2 pollutants will have a huge impact on curbing dangerous air pollution, excessive ultraviolet radiation and ground-level ozone, and deliver multiple gains for health, food security and sustainable development.
As of 2014—the year when the latest government data is available—China emitted 2 gigatons of non-CO2 greenhouse gases, which accounted for 16% of the country’s GHG emissions. To put that in perspective, China’s non-CO2 emissions alone have a warming impact greater than all greenhouse gas emissions from Japan or Brazil. If China’s non-CO2 emissions were a country, they would be the 7th largest emitter of total GHGs in the world.
This blog is all about global warming, which is the long term rise in the average temperature of the earth’s climate system, it is a major aspect of climate change and has been demonstrates of various effects of the warming. Global warming and climate change are often used interchangeable.
When people talk about climate change, the planet-warming gas that invariably comes to mind is carbon dioxide.
But carbon dioxide (CO2) isn’t the only greenhouse gas (GHG) to worry about. Other gases like methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) can have a much more powerful effect in heating our atmosphere. For example, methane emissions from natural gas leaks, agriculture and landfills warm the planet with an intensity 28 times that of the same amount of carbon dioxide over a 100-year time horizon.
Unabated, these powerful gases can contribute to potentially irreversible climate tipping points such as ice-free Arctic summers, the collapse of coral reefs and runaway warming caused by permafrost thaw. On the other hand, bold measures to end non-CO2 pollutants will have a huge impact on curbing dangerous air pollution, excessive ultraviolet radiation and ground-level ozone, and deliver multiple gains for health, food security and sustainable development.
As of 2014—the year when the latest government data is available—China emitted 2 gigatons of non-CO2 greenhouse gases, which accounted for 16% of the country’s GHG emissions. To put that in perspective, China’s non-CO2 emissions alone have a warming impact greater than all greenhouse gas emissions from Japan or Brazil. If China’s non-CO2 emissions were a country, they would be the 7th largest emitter of total GHGs in the world.
New WRI research looks at what China is already doing—and what more it can do—to limit these pollutants. The research finds that policies China has recently put in place to cut non-CO2 emissions puts the country on track to avoid the 3.5 gigatons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) between 2015 and 2030, compared to policies in 2015. That’s a big step in the right direction, but more can be done. Our analysis shows that if China takes more cost-effective actions to tackle sources of non-CO2 emissions it could avoid an additional 3 gigatons of CO2e in that same time period.
Avoiding 3 gigatons of CO2e is like taking 63.6 million cars (over one-fourth of China’s vehicle fleet) off the road for ten years. This would allow China’s non-CO2 emissions to stabilize as early as 2020—a decade earlier than current trajectories—and would cause China’s total non-CO2 GHG emissions to return to 2012 levels sometime before 2030.
And these are emissions levels that China could also incorporate into strengthened targets under the Paris Agreement in 2020.
This blog is all about global warming, which is the long term rise in the average temperature of the earth’s climate system, it is a major aspect of climate change and has been demonstrates of various effects of the warming. Global warming and climate change are often used interchangeable.
Based on livescience.com
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, humans have been rapidly changing the balance of gases in the atmosphere. Burning fossil fuels like coal and oil releases water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), ozone and nitrous oxide (N2O), the primary greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas. Between about 800,000 years ago and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, CO2’s presence in the atmosphere amounted to about 280 parts per million (ppm, meaning there were about 208 molecules of CO2 in the air per every million air molecules). As of 2018 (the last year when full data are available), the average CO2 in the atmosphere was 407.4 ppm, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
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