Towards emissions data transparency: guiding the Methane Observatory Alliance to drive local climate solutions

The fight against climate change requires coordinated actions at all levels of government, with a special focus on local governments. One focus area will be reducing methane emissions. These actors are in a key position to implement mitigation actions that significantly impact the reduction of methane emissions.

However, the lack of access to accurate, high-quality and up-to-date data, as well as insufficient technical capacity to manage this information, represent barriers to achieving climate objectives at the local level. In this context, Emissions Observatories (EO) play a crucial role. These monitoring, reporting and verification systems can generate reliable, comparable and transparent data that local governments need to design, implement and evaluate their mitigation policies.

However, to date, coordination between EO at the global level is limited, which restricts their potential to effectively contribute to the fulfilment of national and international climate commitments. A global collaboration of EO represents a strategic approach to ensuring all levels of government have access to transparent, high-quality climate data, maximizing their capacity to combat climate change.