The anaerobic system is used for short high intensity bursts, (e.g. sprinting, lifting weights, running up the stairs) while the aerobic system is used for long sustained activity (e.g. walking, jogging, sleeping).
It has long been thought that in order to burn fat we had to get into our "fat burning zone", typically after 20 minutes of continuous activity. However, this fat burning zone doesn't actually exist. You see when this whole idea came about researchers where only looking where the calories being burned where coming from, not what the total caloric expenditure was or how high of an "after burn effect" (the total number of calories burn in the period of time following a workout that your body stays in a metabolically elivated state) was created.
Keeping the with the "fat burning zone" theory would mean that the best activity to burn the most calories from fat would be to sit completely still. Because at rest your body uses fat as the primary fuel source. If this worked we would all be thin as the average American moves less and less each year. The problem here is that while fat may be the primary fuel source the caloric expenditure is very low and there is no elevated metabolic state.
On the flip side anaerobic activity, like weight lifting, will use more carbohydrate (muscle gylcogen) as the primary fuel source, but will burn a tremendous amount more calories and create an "after burn effect" for 72 hours after completing your workout. In fact, the more intense the exercise the more calories burned and the greater the after burn effect. This is why jogging, walking, and aerobics in general don't produce as great of results because while they burn calories they aren't very intense. Nothing that is done for longer than 30-60 second bursts falls into the anaerobic category, because if you could sustain doing it for longer than that you aren't working hard enough.
On a side note, all most all of the studies done on the caloric cost of exercise (amount of calories burned) have only looked at it from an aerobic perspective. When looked at from an anaerobic perspective they have found the the anaerobic caloric cost is much greater than the aerobic cost when looking at the same exercise.
Example: 150 pound female would burn the following calories per minute of each type of exercise:
1. Sitting still = 1.35 calories
2.Walking = 5.46 calories
3. Aerobics Class = 9.30 calories
4. Jogging = 13.05 calories
5. Jumping Rope = 13.35 calories
6. KB Snatch Intervals = 26.2 calories
What's this tells us is that the more intense the exercise the more calories per minute burned, and this isn't even taking into account the after burn effect, which will increase as the intensity increases.
So let's take this on step further. Our 150 pound female has the choice between a twenty minute KB Snatch Interval done at a 30 seconds on, 30 seconds of interval repeated for 20 minutes. Or she can take a jog. If she chooses the KB Snatch Interval she will burn 524 calories in twenty minutes and create an after burn effect that will stay in place for the next 72 hours. Or she can take a 40-minute jog and burn the same amount of calories, but not create an after burn effect and her calorie burning will stop shortly after she stops running, unlike with the KB Interval.
Now does this mean that everybody needs to start doing KB Snatch Intervals. No, the same results can be achieved through a Metabolic Resistance Circuit or Non-competing supersets.
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