Methane Roadmaps Turn National Ambition into Action

Between 2022 and 2025, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) supported the development of 35 national methane roadmaps, helping countries lay the groundwork for sustained methane mitigation across key sectors.

A national methane roadmap provides countries with a clear picture of where emissions are coming from, where reductions are possible, and how action can realistically be delivered. By bringing together emissions data, sectoral priorities, and institutional roles, roadmaps help governments move beyond high-level commitments toward practical decision-making. They are designed to align with existing national instruments—including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), long-term climate strategies, and sectoral policies—ensuring coherence across ministries and agencies.

Roadmaps also play an important convening role. By clarifying responsibilities and highlighting economic and development co-benefits, they help build support among government institutions, industry, and civil society. For financiers, methane roadmaps signal political commitment and policy readiness, identifying mitigation opportunities that can be translated into investable projects.

Taken together, methane roadmaps provide countries with the direction and confidence needed to turn ambition into implementation.

CCAC Support for the Development of Methane Roadmaps

Governments' attention to methane has increased sharply, reflected in both the number of countries taking action and the level of detail in national commitments. Methane now features more prominently in NDCs, Methane Action Plans, and national roadmaps, signaling growing ownership of methane mitigation at the country level.

This represents a significant opportunity in tackling global methane emissions. If fully implemented, current NDC and methane planning commitments would reduce global anthropogenic methane emissions by up to 42 million tonnes per year by 2030 compared with the current legislation scenario—around 8 per cent below 2020 levels. While this falls short of the Global Methane Pledge target, it would still deliver substantial benefits, including the avoidance of up to 60,000 premature deaths, prevention of 6.1 million tonnes of crop losses annually, and a reduction of up to 0.06°C of warming by 2050.

The estimated economic value of these benefits—up to US$107 billion per year by 2030—far exceeds implementation costs. Importantly, this level of reduction would represent the largest sustained decline in anthropogenic methane emissions on record.

Methane roadmaps are an important tool the CCAC mobilizes to help countries realize these benefits. These roadmaps are designed to feed directly into national climate planning, particularly the strengthening of methane commitments in NDCs. Core elements of roadmap development—emissions baselining, mitigation option analysis, institutional mapping, and pathway design—mirror the information countries need to set credible targets and define implementation approaches.

Through its Methane Roadmap Action Programme (M-RAP), CCAC has paired technical analysis with sustained capacity building to ensure roadmaps are embedded in national processes rather than treated as standalone studies. Support has included emissions modeling, identification of cost-effective mitigation measures, and facilitation of coordination across ministries responsible for energy, agriculture, waste, and environment. 

To help countries translate roadmap findings into formal climate commitments, CCAC has also developed a dedicated M-RAP webinar series and practical guidance on integrating methane into NDC updates. This support has helped countries apply roadmap outputs directly to policy formulation, strengthening the link between analysis, commitment, and action.

Country Case Studies 

Between 2022 and 2025, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) supported the development of 35 national methane roadmaps, helping countries lay the groundwork for sustained methane mitigation across key sectors.

A national methane roadmap provides countries with a clear picture of where emissions are coming from, where reductions are possible, and how action can realistically be delivered. By bringing together emissions data, sectoral priorities, and institutional roles, roadmaps help governments move beyond high-level commitments toward practical decision-making. They are designed to align with existing national instruments—including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), long-term climate strategies, and sectoral policies—ensuring coherence across ministries and agencies.

Roadmaps also play an important convening role. By clarifying responsibilities and highlighting economic and development co-benefits, they help build support among government institutions, industry, and civil society. For financiers, methane roadmaps signal political commitment and policy readiness, identifying mitigation opportunities that can be translated into investable projects.

Taken together, methane roadmaps provide countries with the direction and confidence needed to turn ambition into implementation.

CCAC Support for the Development of Methane Roadmaps

Governments' attention to methane has increased sharply, reflected in both the number of countries taking action and the level of detail in national commitments. Methane now features more prominently in NDCs, Methane Action Plans, and national roadmaps, signaling growing ownership of methane mitigation at the country level.

This represents a significant opportunity in tackling global methane emissions. If fully implemented, current NDC and methane planning commitments would reduce global anthropogenic methane emissions by up to 42 million tonnes per year by 2030 compared with the current legislation scenario—around 8 per cent below 2020 levels. While this falls short of the Global Methane Pledge target, it would still deliver substantial benefits, including the avoidance of up to 60,000 premature deaths, prevention of 6.1 million tonnes of crop losses annually, and a reduction of up to 0.06°C of warming by 2050.

The estimated economic value of these benefits—up to US$107 billion per year by 2030—far exceeds implementation costs. Importantly, this level of reduction would represent the largest sustained decline in anthropogenic methane emissions on record.

Methane roadmaps are an important tool the CCAC mobilizes to help countries realize these benefits. These roadmaps are designed to feed directly into national climate planning, particularly the strengthening of methane commitments in NDCs. Core elements of roadmap development—emissions baselining, mitigation option analysis, institutional mapping, and pathway design—mirror the information countries need to set credible targets and define implementation approaches.

Through its Methane Roadmap Action Programme (M-RAP), CCAC has paired technical analysis with sustained capacity building to ensure roadmaps are embedded in national processes rather than treated as standalone studies. Support has included emissions modeling, identification of cost-effective mitigation measures, and facilitation of coordination across ministries responsible for energy, agriculture, waste, and environment. 

Uganda

In Uganda, CCAC supported the development of a national SLCP Plan and methane roadmap based on a comprehensive assessment of how energy is produced and used in the country, and how emissions are generated. The roadmap builds on Uganda’s 2021 NDC commitments, identifying major methane sources and quantifying mitigation potential across key sectors.

Capacity-building activities focused on enabling Ministry of Environment staff to understand and update the modeling framework, ensuring that future NDC revisions and climate reporting can be informed by nationally maintained data and analysis. This has positioned Uganda to move toward methane-specific targets in future NDC cycles. 

Ghana

Ghana has made steady progress in methane planning and early implementation with sustained CCAC support. Building on the country’s 2018 National Action Plan to Mitigate SLCPs, CCAC began supporting development of a National Methane Roadmap in 2024, identifying priority sources and implementation pathways in the oil and gas, agriculture, and waste sectors.

These planning efforts are closely linked to NDC implementation and reinforced through complementary CCAC projects to strengthen petroleum regulation, enforce biomass cookstove standards, and improve cooling and ODS governance. Earlier CCAC initiatives—including waste finance support and open-burning mapping—helped establish the institutional foundation for this work.

As a result, Ghana has moved beyond planning toward implementation. In agriculture, climate-smart rice practices using alternate wetting and drying are expected to reduce approximately 1.1 Mt CO₂e by 2030, primarily through methane reductions. In waste, Ghana authorized an Article 6.2 cooperative project with Switzerland targeting over 1.5 million tCO₂e in emissions reductions while producing compost for domestic use. Ghana’s engagement in bilateral carbon-market cooperation illustrates how methane roadmaps can unlock finance when aligned with national systems. 

Dominican Republic

In the Dominican Republic, CCAC support has advanced methane planning alongside national efforts on climate and cooling. A draft methane roadmap is currently under consultation with the National Council of Climate Change and inter-ministerial working groups.

CCAC also supported a national workshop on sustainable public procurement of air conditioners, reaching more than 100 public-sector procurement officials and suppliers through collaboration with UNEP’s U4E programme. These efforts complement legislative developments, as a draft climate law incorporating methane and HFCs has been submitted to Congress. An endorsement workshop for the methane roadmap is planned as the next step.