CCAC Highlights from New York Climate Week 2025

by Climate and Clean Air Coalition Secretariat (CCAC) - 2 October, 2025

During New York Climate Week, 21-28 September 2025, The Climate and Clean Air Coalition played a leading role—spotlighting the urgency of for action super pollutants and propelling concrete solutions that advance health, equity, and sustainable development.

High-Level Solutions Dialogue on Methane

Accelerating Methane Reductions from Fossil Fuels: How Data and Market Levers Can Drive Action

Methane is responsible for about one-third of today’s warming and cutting it is the fastest way to slow temperature rise in this decisive decade. At the Methane Solutions Dialogue, member states explored how market mechanisms—such as the EU’s Methane Regulation—can accelerate progress by incentivizing low-emission fuels and practices/products.

Key priorities emphasized included:

Robust legislation and enforcement frameworks, particularly through CCAC’s Fossil Fuel Regulatory Programme
Transparency and accountability via initiatives like OGMP 2.0 and MARS
A commitment to an acceleration plan for COP30, with stronger targets, credible measurement systems, and mobilized financial support

Read ten solutions from the Climate Summit here.

Meeting the Methane Emergency

At the side event “Halfway through the Global Methane Pledge, Methane Emissions are Accelerating. Can We Hit the Brakes?”, advocates, experts, and government officials sounded the alarm: methane emissions are still rising, even as the 2030 pledge deadline looms.

Speakers called for a binding global methane agreement with mandatory targets, arguing that voluntary pledges alone won’t deliver the cuts needed. Panelists spotlighted greenwashing risks in LNG certification, the influence of powerful agricultural lobbies, and the urgent need for regulation of big meat and dairy companies.

Adalberto Maluf, National Secretary of Urban Environment, Water Resources and Environmental Quality in Brazil, shared his country’s experience with methane mitigation: “Brazil's NDC goes for up to a 67% reduction by 2035. We're on track. We reduced deforestation in the last few years on 46%. That's around 450 million tons [of GHG reduction]. It's larger than a lot of countries -- larger than the UK -- just with the deforestation [reduction]. But we know there's a huge gap. What are we going to tell society when we all meet at COP30 in Belem? Are we going to say, look, unfortunately, these [goals we adopt] are not as ambitious, that we are not on track for [avoiding] 1.5 [degrees of warming] and actually we're not even on track to [avoid] 2 degrees of warming, so that's life, you know, let's wait for the next round of NDCs? No, we can't wait. We don't have any other option. The only option we have Is arriving in Belem acknowledging that our NDCs are far away from where we need [to be]… It's certain that short-lived climate pollutants, especially methane, which represents 30% of global warming in the short term, is our emergency exit. It's the only way.”

Pulling the Emergency Brake: New Methane Report

The Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG) used Climate Week to launch its report Methane: the Emergency Brake for Climate Heating. The report makes the case that cutting methane is the fastest and most cost-effective way to slow warming within our lifetimes.

It highlights proven solutions in energy, agriculture, and waste—and points to politics, not technology, as the biggest barrier to action. The message is clear: tackling methane delivers immediate climate relief while boosting public health, food security, and economic resilience.

Read the report.

Scaling Up Clean Cooking

At Unstoppable Africa: the Global Africa Business Initiative, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition announced bold new steps to transform clean cooking.

A $1 million CCAC-funded project, led by Loughborough University, will accelerate e-cooking uptake in Africa and South Asia—working closely with the World Bank to embed e-cooking in energy and clean air strategies.
A new $2 million Challenge Programme to accelerate e-cooking adoption in Africa. With governments like Nigeria requesting support to integrate e-cooking into national policy.

This initiative promises cleaner air, better health, and greater energy access for millions.

CCAC–Oxfam Gender Strategy Launch

In partnership with Oxfam, CCAC rolled out new Guidance for policymakers and civil society on gender-transformative action on super pollutants. The guidance document identifies gender-differentiated impacts of super pollutants by sector - from gender-related exposure, vulnerability, resources, and decision-making capacity. It shows how women and marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by these pollutants, facing greater health risks, care burdens, and exclusion from decision-making, while also playing vital roles in frontline solutions.

The session featured opening remarks by CCAC’s Martina Otto and CCAC High-Level Advocate Eamon Ryan, a keynote, panel discussion, and Q&A, followed by a reception.

Key Recommendations from the Gender Strategy

The guidance lays out practical steps to ensure that efforts to cut super pollutants also deliver on gender equality:

Funding for gender-transformative action -
Governments and philanthropies addressing
super pollutants should dedicate funding to
advance gender equality, empower women
across sectors, and embed gender
considerations in all policies and programmes.
Gender disaggregated data - Researchers,
governments, and companies should collect and
apply gender- and sex-disaggregated data,
including intersecting identities, to ensure super
pollutant policies are equitable, inclusive, and
effective
Gender targets in super pollutant policies -
Support the move from ambition to action by
setting goals for women’s participation,
leadership, or access to training in national
policies and action plans
Transformative Leadership for Women’s Rights -
create the enabling environment for women’s
leadership to shift cultural norms that perpetuate
gender inequality
Gender and power analysis in program design -
Make robust gender impact assessments or
participatory methods mandatory to identify
power dynamics, prevent unintended harms, and
design programs that proactively reduce gender
inequalities.
Narrative shift - go beyond checkbox
approaches to invest in public engagement and
advocacy with grassroots organisations
Access to emissions mitigation resources -
Design targeted measures—such as technology
subsidies, training programs, and childcare
support—to remove systemic barriers and enable
women and gender minorities to fully participate
in a just transition.
Gender-transformative Monitoring, Evaluation,
Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) - apply
gender-transformative and feminist MEAL
frameworks to strengthen reflection, ensure
participation, and capture complex qualitative
change in super pollutant action.

Read the guidance

Read the policy brief

Smarter Feed. Stronger Genes. Healthier Herds.

Together with Spark Climate Solutions, CCAC convened researchers, innovators, policymakers, and investors to discuss how smarter feed, stronger genetics, and healthier herds can deliver a triple win: reducing methane, improving farmer livelihoods, and strengthening animal and human health.

The event highlighted new innovations, financing mechanisms, and measurement needs to accelerate progress in the livestock sector.

We Don’t Have Time

CCAC’s Martina Otto joined We Don’t Have Time live from Climate Week NYC to speak about methane solutions and the path forward.