Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will propose rescinding the Super Emitter Program, a federal program that uses third-party detections to flag large methane leaks for operators to fix.
The measurements behind that leak detection will still occur. Satellites, aircraft, and ground sensors now track methane at a pace and precision that once seemed impossible. That data helps regulators, companies, and communities direct limited resources toward the sources, sites, and practices where reductions will matter most. But if the federal government is no longer acting on that data, we’ll see a major gap between what we measure and what we act on.
That gap matters because methane matters. Methane drives about 30% of today's warming, yet it receives only a few percent of climate finance. Its short atmospheric lifetime makes it one of the fastest levers we have to slow climate change in the near term. Beyond climate, methane helps form ground-level ozone, which damages crops, threatens food security, and harms human health. Methane also often escapes alongside hazardous air pollutants, and communities living closest to major sources bear the heaviest health burden.
These impacts raise the stakes on knowing exactly where methane comes from and whether our efforts to reduce emissions are working. If the federal government indeed moves forward in abdicating responsibility, more of that work will fall to everyone else: state regulators, companies and investors, carbon market standards and ratings agencies, researchers, advocates, and communities.
The Super Emitter Program covered only one sector—oil and gas—but methane also comes from farms, landfills, and wastewater. Across all sources, the same questions arise: how much methane is escaping, and are efforts to cut it working? Much of the work to answer those questions is organized by sector, following how funding, regulation, and expertise have developed. Leading measurement groups already work across sources, but lessons still travel slowly between the communities working on oil and gas, agriculture, carbon markets, and methane removal. As the federal route from data to action narrows, those connections matter more than ever.
Reducing methane's environmental impacts will take both the groups that measure it and the groups that act on the data. Building on collaboration already underway across the field, Spark Climate Solutions and the Carbon Containment Lab convened "Methane's MRV Gap: Needs and Priorities for Credibly Scaling Climate Impact" during New York Climate Week in September.
The event drew researchers, satellite operators, project developers, ratings agencies, lawyers, and public health scientists. Participants work on methane from different angles, but we face the same challenge: demonstrating credibly that our data and actions translate into real-world methane progress. This post draws on our discussion to show why a coordinated approach to methane matters now more than ever.
Simply put, measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) tells us whether a methane solution works. It means measuring the change, attributing it to a specific action, and verifying the result over time. Done well, MRV gives regulators, investors, buyers, and communities a reason to trust that a reported reduction in methane is real. Done poorly (or not at all), it can produce credits that overstate results and lead to policies that look stronger on paper than in practice.
Methane's MRV gaps have consequences. When an action's impact is hard to verify, it is harder to finance and harder to write into standards. This uncertainty stalls progress on the solutions we need to reduce atmospheric methane levels.
Several features set methane MRV apart from carbon dioxide MRV:
While MRV doesn't always easily translate into good policy decisions (as EPA’s proposed deregulation shows), it does give regulators, companies, and communities the evidence they need to act and influence change.
The clearest evidence comes from comparing places with different rules. As discussed at our event, MethaneSAT data from the Delaware Basin, which straddles New Mexico and Texas, showed New Mexico's oil and gas operations emitting about 60% less methane than those in Texas. The two states share the basin's geology and many of the same operators. The difference came down to New Mexico's stricter, more comprehensive methane rules, which include limits on venting and flaring and requirements for regular leak detection and repair. Measurement mattered at both ends: leak detection was built into New Mexico’s rules, helping operators find and fix leaks. Independent satellite data then showed those rules were working.
Measurement serves not only the solutions we already have, like cutting oil and gas leaks, but also new solutions coming down the pipeline. Our event’s panelists are developing and expanding approaches, such as alternate wetting and drying in rice paddies, composting organic waste, plant-based solutions for agricultural methane, and atmospheric methane removal. Each will need credible MRV to scale effectively and responsibly. For alternate wetting and drying, for example, that means showing the practice actually cuts methane, so that farmers can earn carbon credits or qualify for other financing to adopt the practice.
Data is a tool. To be effective, it must reach the people who can act on it, in a form they can use.
During our event, panelists working in carbon markets described how different decision-makers need different kinds of data. A project developer needs field measurements to build a deal. A ratings agency needs to see how those measurements became credited reductions, “checking the homework” on the methods behind them. A buyer may need only the resulting letter-grade rating. The same data rarely serves all three.
Data has the most impact when it is accessible, easy to understand, and specific to a place. A methane risk map discussed at the event did all three. In March 2025, monitoring data revealed a large methane release from a hydrocarbon storage tank near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Months later, PSE Healthy Energy, a nonprofit research institute, launched its Methane Risk Map, which combines emissions data with gas composition and air quality modeling. The map estimated that the release exposed tens of thousands of people to benzene above short-term health benchmarks, with dozens of schools, childcare centers, and other sensitive facilities nearby. As one panelist put it, “it wasn’t until that benzene map was released that people really cared about the issue in that local context.” An investigative reporter, working with the map’s developers to interpret the data, raised questions about whether the release had been properly reported, and the operator now faces new regulatory and community scrutiny.
The EPA's announcement cuts deepest at this link between data and action. The Super Emitter Program provided a formal pathway from third-party measurement to operator action. Without it, the data will still exist, but what happens next depends on who holds decision-making authority. States with their own methane rules can require operators to act on detections. Buyers and investors can factor verified emissions into what they purchase and fund. Researchers, journalists, and communities lack enforcement power, but as the Carlsbad case shows, they can make problems visible and prompt others to act. The better these groups coordinate how they gather and share data, the less methane will go unabated.
The hardest remaining methane MRV challenges are shared across sectors. One frontier is detecting small changes in diffuse sources. Agriculture, waste, and atmospheric methane removal all need to show shifts of a few ppb across large areas. A method developed for one methane source can speed progress on another, but only if the people working on each source compare notes.
Natural sources raise the stakes further. Wetlands and inland waters account for a large share of global methane emissions. As the climate warms, these warming-induced emissions are likely to grow—and yet they remain among the least monitored sources. A recent paper in Science proposes a Global Ecosystem Methane Observation System, arguing that without better satellites, more ground-based towers, and open data sharing, we cannot tell whether changes in atmospheric methane come from human activity, a warming climate, or both. That distinction matters for many methane solutions, especially atmospheric methane removal, which must show its effect against a background concentration that rising natural emissions are pushing higher.
Another need is credible baselines. Carbon market standards credit many methane projects against default emission factors that can be far off. Evidence discussed at the event suggests standard models may capture only about a third of actual methane emissions from some sanitation systems. Once a project begins, the true baseline disappears—and with it, the ability to account for methane emissions or reductions that would otherwise have occurred. As one panelist put it, "we don't have a portal to an alternative universe."
Panelists differed on how far to rely on default emission factors. One described the choice as "a give-and-take between rigor and how much [measurement] will actually cost." However, they agreed on a path forward: funded regional studies and open sharing of data that projects have already collected. Both steps require more than any single actor can do alone.
Coordination protects the whole field because trust in any one methane solution rises or falls with trust in others. If credited reductions from one type of project are proven to be overstated, buyers and regulators will likely dismiss similar projects too. If one methane regulation fails to deliver measurable results, the case for the next one becomes harder to make.
The stakes are highest for emerging potential solutions, such as atmospheric methane removal. Panelists stressed that new approaches need standardized methods so others can compare results and weigh potential risks against benefits. Getting MRV right early helps these solutions earn and retain public trust.
In recent years, we’ve made real progress on methane action. Measurement tools that were mere research proposals a decade ago now underpin regulation, markets, and public accountability. But atmospheric methane concentrations are still rising. The sooner methane is mitigated, the greater the near-term benefit.
Scaling what works, and developing solutions that hold up across sectors, requires experts who have mostly worked within their own sectors to work together more closely. The Climate Week discussion showed how much there is to gain when we do. To sustain that momentum, we have three asks of the wider methane community, and two offers of our own.
Our asks of the methane community:
What Spark and the Carbon Containment Lab offer:
Methane MRV faces a hard road ahead. Some pathways that have connected measurement to action are narrowing. The hardest technical problems, from diffuse sources to credible baselines, remain unsolved. Yet our ability to measure methane has never been greater, and the people working to act on what we measure have never had more to learn from one another.
Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will propose rescinding the Super Emitter Program, a federal program that uses third-party detections to flag large methane leaks for operators to fix.
The measurements behind that leak detection will still occur. Satellites, aircraft, and ground sensors now track methane at a pace and precision that once seemed impossible. That data helps regulators, companies, and communities direct limited resources toward the sources, sites, and practices where reductions will matter most. But if the federal government is no longer acting on that data, we’ll see a major gap between what we measure and what we act on.
That gap matters because methane matters. Methane drives about 30% of today's warming, yet it receives only a few percent of climate finance. Its short atmospheric lifetime makes it one of the fastest levers we have to slow climate change in the near term. Beyond climate, methane helps form ground-level ozone, which damages crops, threatens food security, and harms human health. Methane also often escapes alongside hazardous air pollutants, and communities living closest to major sources bear the heaviest health burden.
These impacts raise the stakes on knowing exactly where methane comes from and whether our efforts to reduce emissions are working. If the federal government indeed moves forward in abdicating responsibility, more of that work will fall to everyone else: state regulators, companies and investors, carbon market standards and ratings agencies, researchers, advocates, and communities.
The Super Emitter Program covered only one sector—oil and gas—but methane also comes from farms, landfills, and wastewater. Across all sources, the same questions arise: how much methane is escaping, and are efforts to cut it working? Much of the work to answer those questions is organized by sector, following how funding, regulation, and expertise have developed. Leading measurement groups already work across sources, but lessons still travel slowly between the communities working on oil and gas, agriculture, carbon markets, and methane removal. As the federal route from data to action narrows, those connections matter more than ever.
Reducing methane's environmental impacts will take both the groups that measure it and the groups that act on the data. Building on collaboration already underway across the field, Spark Climate Solutions and the Carbon Containment Lab convened "Methane's MRV Gap: Needs and Priorities for Credibly Scaling Climate Impact" during New York Climate Week in September.
The event drew researchers, satellite operators, project developers, ratings agencies, lawyers, and public health scientists. Participants work on methane from different angles, but we face the same challenge: demonstrating credibly that our data and actions translate into real-world methane progress. This post draws on our discussion to show why a coordinated approach to methane matters now more than ever.
Simply put, measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) tells us whether a methane solution works. It means measuring the change, attributing it to a specific action, and verifying the result over time. Done well, MRV gives regulators, investors, buyers, and communities a reason to trust that a reported reduction in methane is real. Done poorly (or not at all), it can produce credits that overstate results and lead to policies that look stronger on paper than in practice.
Methane's MRV gaps have consequences. When an action's impact is hard to verify, it is harder to finance and harder to write into standards. This uncertainty stalls progress on the solutions we need to reduce atmospheric methane levels.
Several features set methane MRV apart from carbon dioxide MRV:
While MRV doesn't always easily translate into good policy decisions (as EPA’s proposed deregulation shows), it does give regulators, companies, and communities the evidence they need to act and influence change.
The clearest evidence comes from comparing places with different rules. As discussed at our event, MethaneSAT data from the Delaware Basin, which straddles New Mexico and Texas, showed New Mexico's oil and gas operations emitting about 60% less methane than those in Texas. The two states share the basin's geology and many of the same operators. The difference came down to New Mexico's stricter, more comprehensive methane rules, which include limits on venting and flaring and requirements for regular leak detection and repair. Measurement mattered at both ends: leak detection was built into New Mexico’s rules, helping operators find and fix leaks. Independent satellite data then showed those rules were working.
Measurement serves not only the solutions we already have, like cutting oil and gas leaks, but also new solutions coming down the pipeline. Our event’s panelists are developing and expanding approaches, such as alternate wetting and drying in rice paddies, composting organic waste, plant-based solutions for agricultural methane, and atmospheric methane removal. Each will need credible MRV to scale effectively and responsibly. For alternate wetting and drying, for example, that means showing the practice actually cuts methane, so that farmers can earn carbon credits or qualify for other financing to adopt the practice.
Data is a tool. To be effective, it must reach the people who can act on it, in a form they can use.
During our event, panelists working in carbon markets described how different decision-makers need different kinds of data. A project developer needs field measurements to build a deal. A ratings agency needs to see how those measurements became credited reductions, “checking the homework” on the methods behind them. A buyer may need only the resulting letter-grade rating. The same data rarely serves all three.
Data has the most impact when it is accessible, easy to understand, and specific to a place. A methane risk map discussed at the event did all three. In March 2025, monitoring data revealed a large methane release from a hydrocarbon storage tank near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Months later, PSE Healthy Energy, a nonprofit research institute, launched its Methane Risk Map, which combines emissions data with gas composition and air quality modeling. The map estimated that the release exposed tens of thousands of people to benzene above short-term health benchmarks, with dozens of schools, childcare centers, and other sensitive facilities nearby. As one panelist put it, “it wasn’t until that benzene map was released that people really cared about the issue in that local context.” An investigative reporter, working with the map’s developers to interpret the data, raised questions about whether the release had been properly reported, and the operator now faces new regulatory and community scrutiny.
The EPA's announcement cuts deepest at this link between data and action. The Super Emitter Program provided a formal pathway from third-party measurement to operator action. Without it, the data will still exist, but what happens next depends on who holds decision-making authority. States with their own methane rules can require operators to act on detections. Buyers and investors can factor verified emissions into what they purchase and fund. Researchers, journalists, and communities lack enforcement power, but as the Carlsbad case shows, they can make problems visible and prompt others to act. The better these groups coordinate how they gather and share data, the less methane will go unabated.
The hardest remaining methane MRV challenges are shared across sectors. One frontier is detecting small changes in diffuse sources. Agriculture, waste, and atmospheric methane removal all need to show shifts of a few ppb across large areas. A method developed for one methane source can speed progress on another, but only if the people working on each source compare notes.
Natural sources raise the stakes further. Wetlands and inland waters account for a large share of global methane emissions. As the climate warms, these warming-induced emissions are likely to grow—and yet they remain among the least monitored sources. A recent paper in Science proposes a Global Ecosystem Methane Observation System, arguing that without better satellites, more ground-based towers, and open data sharing, we cannot tell whether changes in atmospheric methane come from human activity, a warming climate, or both. That distinction matters for many methane solutions, especially atmospheric methane removal, which must show its effect against a background concentration that rising natural emissions are pushing higher.
Another need is credible baselines. Carbon market standards credit many methane projects against default emission factors that can be far off. Evidence discussed at the event suggests standard models may capture only about a third of actual methane emissions from some sanitation systems. Once a project begins, the true baseline disappears—and with it, the ability to account for methane emissions or reductions that would otherwise have occurred. As one panelist put it, "we don't have a portal to an alternative universe."
Panelists differed on how far to rely on default emission factors. One described the choice as "a give-and-take between rigor and how much [measurement] will actually cost." However, they agreed on a path forward: funded regional studies and open sharing of data that projects have already collected. Both steps require more than any single actor can do alone.
Coordination protects the whole field because trust in any one methane solution rises or falls with trust in others. If credited reductions from one type of project are proven to be overstated, buyers and regulators will likely dismiss similar projects too. If one methane regulation fails to deliver measurable results, the case for the next one becomes harder to make.
The stakes are highest for emerging potential solutions, such as atmospheric methane removal. Panelists stressed that new approaches need standardized methods so others can compare results and weigh potential risks against benefits. Getting MRV right early helps these solutions earn and retain public trust.
In recent years, we’ve made real progress on methane action. Measurement tools that were mere research proposals a decade ago now underpin regulation, markets, and public accountability. But atmospheric methane concentrations are still rising. The sooner methane is mitigated, the greater the near-term benefit.
Scaling what works, and developing solutions that hold up across sectors, requires experts who have mostly worked within their own sectors to work together more closely. The Climate Week discussion showed how much there is to gain when we do. To sustain that momentum, we have three asks of the wider methane community, and two offers of our own.
Our asks of the methane community:
What Spark and the Carbon Containment Lab offer:
Methane MRV faces a hard road ahead. Some pathways that have connected measurement to action are narrowing. The hardest technical problems, from diffuse sources to credible baselines, remain unsolved. Yet our ability to measure methane has never been greater, and the people working to act on what we measure have never had more to learn from one another.
Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will propose rescinding the Super Emitter Program, a federal program that uses third-party detections to flag large methane leaks for operators to fix.
The measurements behind that leak detection will still occur. Satellites, aircraft, and ground sensors now track methane at a pace and precision that once seemed impossible. That data helps regulators, companies, and communities direct limited resources toward the sources, sites, and practices where reductions will matter most. But if the federal government is no longer acting on that data, we’ll see a major gap between what we measure and what we act on.
That gap matters because methane matters. Methane drives about 30% of today's warming, yet it receives only a few percent of climate finance. Its short atmospheric lifetime makes it one of the fastest levers we have to slow climate change in the near term. Beyond climate, methane helps form ground-level ozone, which damages crops, threatens food security, and harms human health. Methane also often escapes alongside hazardous air pollutants, and communities living closest to major sources bear the heaviest health burden.
These impacts raise the stakes on knowing exactly where methane comes from and whether our efforts to reduce emissions are working. If the federal government indeed moves forward in abdicating responsibility, more of that work will fall to everyone else: state regulators, companies and investors, carbon market standards and ratings agencies, researchers, advocates, and communities.
The Super Emitter Program covered only one sector—oil and gas—but methane also comes from farms, landfills, and wastewater. Across all sources, the same questions arise: how much methane is escaping, and are efforts to cut it working? Much of the work to answer those questions is organized by sector, following how funding, regulation, and expertise have developed. Leading measurement groups already work across sources, but lessons still travel slowly between the communities working on oil and gas, agriculture, carbon markets, and methane removal. As the federal route from data to action narrows, those connections matter more than ever.
Reducing methane's environmental impacts will take both the groups that measure it and the groups that act on the data. Building on collaboration already underway across the field, Spark Climate Solutions and the Carbon Containment Lab convened "Methane's MRV Gap: Needs and Priorities for Credibly Scaling Climate Impact" during New York Climate Week in September.
The event drew researchers, satellite operators, project developers, ratings agencies, lawyers, and public health scientists. Participants work on methane from different angles, but we face the same challenge: demonstrating credibly that our data and actions translate into real-world methane progress. This post draws on our discussion to show why a coordinated approach to methane matters now more than ever.
Simply put, measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) tells us whether a methane solution works. It means measuring the change, attributing it to a specific action, and verifying the result over time. Done well, MRV gives regulators, investors, buyers, and communities a reason to trust that a reported reduction in methane is real. Done poorly (or not at all), it can produce credits that overstate results and lead to policies that look stronger on paper than in practice.
Methane's MRV gaps have consequences. When an action's impact is hard to verify, it is harder to finance and harder to write into standards. This uncertainty stalls progress on the solutions we need to reduce atmospheric methane levels.
Several features set methane MRV apart from carbon dioxide MRV:
While MRV doesn't always easily translate into good policy decisions (as EPA’s proposed deregulation shows), it does give regulators, companies, and communities the evidence they need to act and influence change.
The clearest evidence comes from comparing places with different rules. As discussed at our event, MethaneSAT data from the Delaware Basin, which straddles New Mexico and Texas, showed New Mexico's oil and gas operations emitting about 60% less methane than those in Texas. The two states share the basin's geology and many of the same operators. The difference came down to New Mexico's stricter, more comprehensive methane rules, which include limits on venting and flaring and requirements for regular leak detection and repair. Measurement mattered at both ends: leak detection was built into New Mexico’s rules, helping operators find and fix leaks. Independent satellite data then showed those rules were working.
Measurement serves not only the solutions we already have, like cutting oil and gas leaks, but also new solutions coming down the pipeline. Our event’s panelists are developing and expanding approaches, such as alternate wetting and drying in rice paddies, composting organic waste, plant-based solutions for agricultural methane, and atmospheric methane removal. Each will need credible MRV to scale effectively and responsibly. For alternate wetting and drying, for example, that means showing the practice actually cuts methane, so that farmers can earn carbon credits or qualify for other financing to adopt the practice.
Data is a tool. To be effective, it must reach the people who can act on it, in a form they can use.
During our event, panelists working in carbon markets described how different decision-makers need different kinds of data. A project developer needs field measurements to build a deal. A ratings agency needs to see how those measurements became credited reductions, “checking the homework” on the methods behind them. A buyer may need only the resulting letter-grade rating. The same data rarely serves all three.
Data has the most impact when it is accessible, easy to understand, and specific to a place. A methane risk map discussed at the event did all three. In March 2025, monitoring data revealed a large methane release from a hydrocarbon storage tank near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Months later, PSE Healthy Energy, a nonprofit research institute, launched its Methane Risk Map, which combines emissions data with gas composition and air quality modeling. The map estimated that the release exposed tens of thousands of people to benzene above short-term health benchmarks, with dozens of schools, childcare centers, and other sensitive facilities nearby. As one panelist put it, “it wasn’t until that benzene map was released that people really cared about the issue in that local context.” An investigative reporter, working with the map’s developers to interpret the data, raised questions about whether the release had been properly reported, and the operator now faces new regulatory and community scrutiny.
The EPA's announcement cuts deepest at this link between data and action. The Super Emitter Program provided a formal pathway from third-party measurement to operator action. Without it, the data will still exist, but what happens next depends on who holds decision-making authority. States with their own methane rules can require operators to act on detections. Buyers and investors can factor verified emissions into what they purchase and fund. Researchers, journalists, and communities lack enforcement power, but as the Carlsbad case shows, they can make problems visible and prompt others to act. The better these groups coordinate how they gather and share data, the less methane will go unabated.
The hardest remaining methane MRV challenges are shared across sectors. One frontier is detecting small changes in diffuse sources. Agriculture, waste, and atmospheric methane removal all need to show shifts of a few ppb across large areas. A method developed for one methane source can speed progress on another, but only if the people working on each source compare notes.
Natural sources raise the stakes further. Wetlands and inland waters account for a large share of global methane emissions. As the climate warms, these warming-induced emissions are likely to grow—and yet they remain among the least monitored sources. A recent paper in Science proposes a Global Ecosystem Methane Observation System, arguing that without better satellites, more ground-based towers, and open data sharing, we cannot tell whether changes in atmospheric methane come from human activity, a warming climate, or both. That distinction matters for many methane solutions, especially atmospheric methane removal, which must show its effect against a background concentration that rising natural emissions are pushing higher.
Another need is credible baselines. Carbon market standards credit many methane projects against default emission factors that can be far off. Evidence discussed at the event suggests standard models may capture only about a third of actual methane emissions from some sanitation systems. Once a project begins, the true baseline disappears—and with it, the ability to account for methane emissions or reductions that would otherwise have occurred. As one panelist put it, "we don't have a portal to an alternative universe."
Panelists differed on how far to rely on default emission factors. One described the choice as "a give-and-take between rigor and how much [measurement] will actually cost." However, they agreed on a path forward: funded regional studies and open sharing of data that projects have already collected. Both steps require more than any single actor can do alone.
Coordination protects the whole field because trust in any one methane solution rises or falls with trust in others. If credited reductions from one type of project are proven to be overstated, buyers and regulators will likely dismiss similar projects too. If one methane regulation fails to deliver measurable results, the case for the next one becomes harder to make.
The stakes are highest for emerging potential solutions, such as atmospheric methane removal. Panelists stressed that new approaches need standardized methods so others can compare results and weigh potential risks against benefits. Getting MRV right early helps these solutions earn and retain public trust.
In recent years, we’ve made real progress on methane action. Measurement tools that were mere research proposals a decade ago now underpin regulation, markets, and public accountability. But atmospheric methane concentrations are still rising. The sooner methane is mitigated, the greater the near-term benefit.
Scaling what works, and developing solutions that hold up across sectors, requires experts who have mostly worked within their own sectors to work together more closely. The Climate Week discussion showed how much there is to gain when we do. To sustain that momentum, we have three asks of the wider methane community, and two offers of our own.
Our asks of the methane community:
What Spark and the Carbon Containment Lab offer:
Methane MRV faces a hard road ahead. Some pathways that have connected measurement to action are narrowing. The hardest technical problems, from diffuse sources to credible baselines, remain unsolved. Yet our ability to measure methane has never been greater, and the people working to act on what we measure have never had more to learn from one another.
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