The International Energy Agency (IEA) posed the following question in a tweet on Monday:

The answer? Well above the current methane emission rate — particularly in the United States — according to a preview of an IEA analysis that will be featured in the annual World Energy Outlook in November.

As the following IEA graphic shows, the global warming potential of natural gas over a 20-year (GWP20) and 100-year (GW100) timeframe is still far lower than other traditional sources of energy even at leakage rates far higher than IEA’s current estimated global leakage rate of 1.7 percent.