By what parameters do you think we don't have 100 years? When I read the IPCC reports, it seems that during the next 50 years, we may see moderate increases in temperatures (1-3C, depending on scenario). While this may be bad in some areas, it's nothing compared to the worst case scenarios for 2200-2300 (up to 12C).
A temperature increase of ~2C may at worst be comparable with a large pandemic or even WW2, just with the damage spread out over 2-3 generations. 12C, on the other hand, will leave large parts of the globe uninhabitable without technological assistance, and could wipe out a non-trival fraction of humanity if our tech doesn't keep up (still less hostile than Mars or Venus, though).
But for the scenarios that go 150+ years into the future, methane is a pretty small contributor compared to CO2.
Sorry, I shouldn't have written it like that. I suppose what I really mean is that it makes sense to look at the CO2 equivalent over a 100 year period when thinking about long-term climate change, but we're going to see large effects in the coming decades. The full sentence I should've written is something like, we don't have 100 years before we start seeing major changes, so the short-term impact should be a part of the conversation.
> we don't have 100 years before we start seeing major changes
I think perhaps (please correct me if you think I'm wrong) you're overestimating short term changes. Environmentalists tend to blame every disaster, flood or hurricane on climate change. This is like a mirror image to how the climate change deniers use every cold winter (or summer) as proof that climate change is a hoax.
If you look at the data, the current effects of climate change is somewhere in the middle. At present, one could argue that the net effects of climate change are actually slightly positive. Deaths due to heat is going up slightly, but deaths due to cold is going down faster than the deaths due to heat is going up.
By 2050, the adverse effects of the warming is probably greater than the positive ones, depending on scenario. Still, provided there is some technological and economic growth over the next 100 years, people living in 2122 will most likely be wealther (and more food secure), healthier and safer than people that live today, even if the improvement will be less than over 1922-2022.
> so the short-term impact should be a part of the conversation.
But by then, the impact of methane released today is already much LESS than the 25x quoted. More like 10x, and falling rapidly from there.
Also, there is the fact that changing policies takes time. One might even argue that there is an advantage to having a component to the warming where we will actually get a somewhat "quick" effect from cutting. Methane will contribute quite a bit to warming in the very short term, but as soon as we are able to stop releases, the effects will be gone within a generation, give or take (while CO2 hangs around for centuries).
A temperature increase of ~2C may at worst be comparable with a large pandemic or even WW2, just with the damage spread out over 2-3 generations. 12C, on the other hand, will leave large parts of the globe uninhabitable without technological assistance, and could wipe out a non-trival fraction of humanity if our tech doesn't keep up (still less hostile than Mars or Venus, though).
But for the scenarios that go 150+ years into the future, methane is a pretty small contributor compared to CO2.