Methane is a powerful driver of climate change, responsible for roughly 30% of the warming we're experiencing today. It’s critical that we continue to research and implement solutions to stop methane emissions wherever and whenever possible.

But the methane community is increasingly grappling with an important question: what if reducing emissions isn't enough? Even with aggressive mitigation, some anthropogenic sources may prove hard-to-abate; natural methane emissions from permafrost, wetlands, and other ecosystems are expected to rise significantly as the planet warms; and scientists are unsure whether human and natural processes will lengthen methane’s atmospheric lifetime. Methane removal—accelerating the breakdown of methane already emitted into the atmosphere—is drawing growing scientific interest as a potential response to these risks. Since 2022, Spark has granted over $8 million to research projects investigating the most promising approaches and assessing their real-world potential.

Methane removal research is at a very early stage, and it is not clear which approaches, if any, may prove viable. Physical science research is essential to assessing methane removal’s viability—but it isn't the whole picture. Although some early research has explored legal frameworks for methane removal, many questions surrounding the law, policy, and governance for methane removal remain underexplored. Since some potential methane removal approaches involve interventions in the atmosphere or other natural systems, these gaps present serious obstacles to judging viability.

To advance that conversation, Spark and the UCLA Emmett Institute's Earth System Interventions Law & Policy Project co-hosted a roundtable at London Climate Action Week. It convened researchers, lawyers, policymakers, and practitioners to surface and examine questions that are becoming increasingly urgent as the science matures.

Participants highlighted the following topics as crucial issues and opportunities for accelerating the assessment of methane removal.

Possible Methane Removal Use Cases‍

Where, when, and why would methane removal be justified? Should future methane removal deployment be considered wherever it's cost-effective, wherever it's technically possible, or only as a complement to mitigation for genuinely hard-to-abate sources? How, and by whom, will this be determined in the future? What are the specific use cases and potential deployment scenarios that can help us understand social and environmental risks and, therefore, governance needs?

Because methane's atmospheric lifetime is measured in decades rather than centuries, use cases do not map cleanly between carbon dioxide and methane. And given that warming-induced emissions—e.g., from permafrost thaw and warming tropical wetlands—are projected to increase, any framework will also need to account for emissions that typically fall outside current accounting frameworks, like national greenhouse gas inventories and nationally-determined contributions. Both point to the need for a distinct approach for methane removal, tailored to its scientific and technical characteristics, rather than simply extending existing concepts used for carbon dioxide removal.‍

Accounting and Metrics

‍How should methane removal be accounted for in greenhouse gas inventories? Which warming-potential metric should anchor that accounting, and potentially any pricing in a future market? (For example, is carbon-dioxide-equivalent over 100 years the right metric? Over 20 years?) And what would it take to build the monitoring, reporting, and verification systems that any credible market would depend on?

Methane removal involves accelerating methane's natural breakdown into carbon dioxide rather than storing carbon (as carbon dioxide removal does). This distinction raises two separate accounting challenges. The first concerns measurement: verifying that removal has occurred requires a different monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) framework than CDR — one undergirded by improved atmospheric monitoring and a stronger understanding of atmospheric chemistry, since the "removal" is a chemical transformation dispersed in the atmosphere rather than a discrete, storable quantity of carbon. The second concerns metrics: if methane removal were ever integrated into existing accounting frameworks, a natural fit would be alongside CDR, but doing so would require selecting a conversion metric such as a global warming potential (GWP). That choice offers the benefit of simplicity and compatibility with existing markets, but it carries important implications for financing and for whether addressing near- or long-term warming takes priority. These are high-stakes questions that call for careful study, consideration, and choices.

Impacts on Air Quality

‍What are the potential impacts of methane removal on air quality? Could existing air pollution regulatory frameworks serve as a governance hook for methane removal? How can policymakers weigh methane removal's potential air-quality impacts, including for local communities, against the risks of specific approaches?

Many jurisdictions around the world have had robust air quality regimes since at least the 1970s. Given that methane, unlike carbon dioxide, directly contributes to air pollution, these frameworks offer a clear and readily available regulatory hook for methane removal activities. These frameworks could be used for providing oversight for related air quality risks, but they could also be used to promote the assessment and development of methane removal approaches.  

Moving Forward

No single discipline is positioned to answer all of these questions. That is precisely why convenings like this one matter, and Spark and UCLA were proud to serve in that capacity: bringing researchers, funders, NGOs, and policymakers into the same room is exactly the kind of cross-disciplinary work the field needs now.

The methane removal governance conversation is taking place in a challenging geopolitical environment, not least of which includes cuts to atmospheric monitoring and research funding. Yet there are real signals of appetite to take methane removal governance, law, and policy seriously. Chief among them is the recent introduction of the bipartisan Methane Removal Research and Innovation Act, which would fund methane removal research not only in the physical sciences and engineering but also in the social sciences, ethics, and governance.

The discussion in London raised important questions that will shape the future of assessing methane removal. But it was also just the beginning of a broader effort — one that needs input from a wider range of voices. If you'd like to be part of that effort, we'd love to hear from you.

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