Spotlight On: Methane

As the destructive effects of a warming climate increase, the rapid reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions becomes ever more critical. Cutting emissions of one powerful GHG in particular, methane, can help countries achieve climate mitigation benefits quickly while buying time to implement strategies to reduce other GHGs.

The Global Methane Pledge – launched at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26)—represents the single largest methane reduction initiative in history and aims to reduce methane emissions by at least 30 percent by 2030, from 2020 levels. Mobilizing finance, ensuring policy cohesion, equipping project developers with best practices for financial and technical feasibility, and ensuring transparency and rigor in the accounting and reporting of methane emissions are all critical building blocks to making the Global Methane Pledge deliver real results.

Abt Global supports key aspects of the Global Methane Pledge and brings more than two decades of experience supporting flagship programs targeting methane mitigation in the U.S. and around the world. We have built foundational resources for the U.S. EPA on behalf of the Global Methane Initiative since 2005 and have supported EPA’s complementary efforts under the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), Coalbed Methane Outreach Program (CMOP), and AgSTAR programs. We are ready to deploy our extensive technical resources, broad set of partners, and proven tools to enable coordinated and meaningful action on methane at all needed scales, from the national to project level.

Expertise

Abt’s technical assistance ranges from advancing methane mitigation to capture strategies in all methane-generating sectors: agriculture, municipal solid waste, wastewater, coal, and oil and gas. We prepare market and technology needs assessments, conduct technical training, and develop tools to support project screening and decision making.

Our expertise includes:

Technical feasibility assessments
Financial analyses and methane finance mobilization
Measurement, reporting, verification (MRV)
Capacity building, tool development, training, and workshopping
Strategic communications and planning
Governance, regulatory, and policy support
Sector-wide opportunity assessment
Health and economic co-benefit quantification
Geospatial and sensor analytics and dashboarding

Featured Capabilities

Global Methane Pledge Fundamentals: Measurement, Reporting and Verification and Implementation Tools

Abt has extensive experience with methane measurement, verification, and reporting (MRV), which are critical for making the Global Methane Pledge (GMP) a reality. From emissions inventories to predictive modeling and geospatial analytics, our user-friendly online informatics accelerate on-the-ground GMP action.

On U.S. EPA’s behalf, Abt has produced digital tools and resources that have helped project developers, governments, and implementers design methane mitigation strategies and bring projects on-line that yield financial, environmental, and public health benefits. Key to this is assessing the feasibility and benefits of potential projects and technologies, such as food waste digesters that produce valuable biogas. Tools and resources we have developed with U.S. EPA for the Global Methane Initiative (GMI) and Climate and Clean Air Coalition have been used by dozens of countries and hundreds of projects worldwide. These include:

The SWEET tool has been used by more than 50 cities–from Delhi, India, to Novi Sad, Serbia—to estimate waste sector methane emissions and plan mitigation strategies. In India, Abt assisted EPA in conducting a feasibility assessment on the use of biogas to power cooling systems in rural regions of Maharashtra. We used both the Anaerobic Digest Screening Tool and OrganEcs for AD to estimate the biogas production potential and financial feasibility of anaerobic digestion projects to supply biogas to cold storage systems.

Regulatory and Policy Support and Sector-Wide Opportunity Assessments

Policy cohesion and effective regulation are foundational to facilitating the scale of action required to meet the objectives of the Global Methane Pledge. Abt has supported rulemaking processes in the U.S. related to reducing waste and improving efficiency of natural gas extraction on public lands for the Bureau of Land Management and on pipeline safety for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

Abt has also developed resources for policymakers to deliver actionable guidance for informed decision-making. This has included improving GHG inventory estimates from the oil and gas sector for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and developing guidance materials, such as GMI’s Policymaker’s Handbook for Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) in the biogas sector.

Limited resources and a compressed time horizon for action requires efforts that focus on opportunities most ripe for methane solutions. Abt has developed sector-wide decision-support tools with geospatial applications to enable screening and decision optimization around potential methane utilization projects. For example, the interactive map of U.S. Coal Mines Abt developed for the CMOP provides information on existing methane recovery projects at U.S. coal miles and enables identification of mines that could potentially host methane utilization projects in the future.

Strategic Communications and Engagement Support

Abt’s experienced communications experts use proven advertising and marketing methods that promote clarity and boost engagement. Abt has been a close thought-partner for U.S. EPA’s Global Methane Initiative (GMI) team, helping develop an overarching communications strategy that included recommendations for improving GMI’s messaging, products, and communications channels.

Abt also has developed strategic communication and stakeholder engagement plans for many other key initiatives, such as GMI, the CCAC Waste Hub, and U.S. EPA’s Coalbed Methane Outreach Program (CMOP). CMOP communicates directly with coal mine operators and owners, project developers, equipment vendors, and other industry leaders through webinars, stakeholder inquiries, and a large listserv. Our website optimization effort has increased the CMOP site engagement by 84% since 2019.

Fostering Collaborations to Enhance National and Regional Capacity

The urgency of addressing climate change requires dissemination of knowledge, proven approaches, and best practices to promote coordinated and effective action. To institutionalize collaboratives for continuous progress, Abt facilitated coordination in dozens of countries to reduce methane emissions through knowledge sharing and capacity building.

For example, Abt worked with U.S. EPA to support the creation of the Center of Excellence for Circular Economy and Climate Change in Serbia, providing technical and strategic advice for waste management and circular economy practices to mitigate GHG emissions. The center of excellence model was then replicated by partners in Latin America. These two entities now collaborate as part of a growing network of centers focused on strengthening circular economy strategies.

Identifying the Health Impacts of Methane

Abt Global produced a series of reports for the Global Climate and Health Alliance that identify correlations between methane emissions and public health. Methane worsens air quality by contributing to the creation of ground-level ozone, a toxic air pollutant that causes more than 1 million respiratory deaths in adults each year.

The report series, Mitigating Methane: A Global Health Strategy, surveyed top literature and experts to create a comprehensive guide that identifies methane’s health impacts by sector. The reports also highlight the best opportunities for the health community to advocate for methane mitigation at international, national, and local levels in the energy, waste, and agriculture sectors.

Quantifying and Monetizing Health and Economic Co-benefits

Action now on methane mitigation delivers significant co-benefits, significantly strengthening the value proposition of urgent action. Abt has developed tools and methodological approaches that not only quantify co-benefits but also monetize them for streamlined integration into financial and economic considerations.

For example, Abt developed EPA's CO–Benefits Risk Assessment (COBRA) tool, a robust screening model that helps state and local governments estimate the economic value of reductions in air pollution through methane mitigation and associated public health benefits. The tool converts emissions reductions into air quality improvements and estimates adverse health impacts avoided, from asthma exacerbations and workdays lost to heart attacks and deaths. COBRA then is able to monetize the benefits of avoided adverse health effects, arming stakeholders with data to improve decision making at the county, state, and national level.

Tracking and Monitoring Methane Emissions and Reductions

Tracking and monitoring methane is an integral step for countries to reduce overall emissions and mitigate climate change. Leading the USAID Comprehensive Action for Climate Change Initiative (CACCI), Abt is developing a Methane Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework that will enable USAID to estimate methane reductions across high-emitting sectors, including dairy, rice, solid waste, and beef production. For each of these sectors, CACCI is identifying methane emissions goals, developing methane estimation tools, and introducing best practices in emission estimation. This initiative will address the need for measuring the effectiveness of USAID strategies and activities in reducing methane pollution.