OECD ENVIRONET: Quick Wins for Climate & Development

On October 5 2023, the OECD ENVIRONET held a session on Quick Wins for Climate & Development - the Climate & Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) chaired by the ENVIRONET Co-Chair from Denmark. Following presentations from CCAC Scientific Advisory Panel Chair, Professor Drew Shindell, CCAC country partners from Nigeria (Asmau Jibril, Federal Ministry of Environment of Nigeria) and Vietnam (Dr. Tran Dai Nghia, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) highlighted the progress and remaining challenges in reducing short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) from fossil fuel and agriculture sectors – and the important role of development cooperation in achieving methane reduction targets. The OECD ENVIRONET Chair subsequently opened the floor for questions and comments from members. Key discussion points included:  
 

• The reduction of short-lived climate pollutants – and methane in particular - is increasingly emerging as a development topic, picking up on momentum from COP26 and the Global Methane Pledge.
• Addressing methane emissions is truly a win-win endeavor. By doing so, we will achieve our development objectives while contributing to the call to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees within reach.
• CCAC partners like Switzerland and the United States have made substantial commitments across their development portfolios to address air pollution and methane mitigation, providing a model that other countries may look to as we move to large scale implementation of SLCP measures.
• Development assistance to address short-lived climate pollutants remains very low – with less than 2% of climate finance going to methane mitigation measures, and less that 1% of Official Development Assistance allocated to addressing air pollution despite its enormous toll on public health in low- and middle-income countries.
• USAID/United States has recognized that methane reduction goes hand in hand with making progress on global development and health objectives – and is for example providing new funding for methane abatement projects in the livestock sector in developing countries that will predominantly focus on increasing productivity to reduce methane emissions intensity. This will also increase farmer incomes, improve food security, and reduce local air pollution.
• USAID/United States has called for bilateral aid agencies along with multilateral and philanthropic organizations to integrate methane mitigation in their existing development programming and increase funding for methane mitigation projects.
• SDC/Switzerland invests in air pollution reduction because it is crucial for meeting the sustainable development goals, given the multiple co-benefits for human health, food security, protecting ecosystems, poverty reduction and inequality, and contributing to climate change mitigation – with more than 30 years of work on this topic in Latin America, China, and India.
• SDC/Switzerland has also invested in initiatives like the CCAC which bring the topic of air pollution to the global agenda, accelerating common action to face common challenges – identifying the CCAC as a platform to share experiences between actors on reducing air pollution.
• SDC/Switzerland encouraged other ENVIRONET members to include SLCPs and multiple co-benefits in their own portfolios, to join the CCAC, and to explore other forms of cooperation.
• JICA/Japan welcomed the progress made to date by Nigeria and Vietnam in reducing methane emissions and acknowledged methane as a serious development priority in both agriculture and waste sectors. JICA/Japan highlighted its willingness to share knowledge and available technologies for methane reduction including for water management in paddy rice alternate wetting and drying (AWD), and for methane capture and utilization from open dump sites.