CCAC backed by $11 m donations to double climate action efforts

03 / 04 / 2022

• news
• Sustainable Development

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) will be supported by $11 million donations to redouble its efforts to rapidly deploy solutions to limit global temperature rise and make air pollution a problem of the past.

The donations were announced during a celebration marking the 10th anniversary of the CCAC.

To support  the achievement of critical climate and clean air goals by 2030, Global Methane Hub CEO, Marcelo Mena, announced the Hub will contribute $10 million in funds to the CCAC to help countries achieve the Global Methane Pledge (GMP)’s target, saying short lived climate pollutants put a human face on climate action by reducing exposure to pollution and bringing direct health benefits to the citizens of countries that act.

“Methane mitigation has become increasingly urgent, and we have witnessed its contribution to current warming. Reducing methane emissions by 45% will allow us to prevent 0.3 degrees of warming by 2040, and that’s why the Global Methane Pledge is important,” he said.

“The Global Methane Hub will support countries that want to meet the pledge and those that want to go beyond. I am convinced that fighting methane emissions will contribute to climate benefits, but also help contribute to more sustainable energy and food systems.”

Sweden used the occasion to announce $300,000 in new funding for the CCAC and Luxembourg will provide an additional $75,000.

The CCAC played a critical role in shaping the GMP to collectively reduce anthropogenic methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels. The CCAC and UNEP’s 2021 Global Methane Assessment formed the GMP’s scientific underpinning by illustrating that there are readily available measures that can achieve its goals.

Methane emissions reached record levels in 2021, despite the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Rapid action to mitigate methane is one of the most effective strategies the world has to keep global temperature rise below 1.5⁰C.

Some 111 countries, representing 50 percent of global man-made methane emissions, have now joined the GMP to reverse this trend. Likewise, over 20 philanthropies have pledged $340 million to help support ambitious methane mitigation goals around the world by forming a first of its kind foundation called the Global Methane Hub. The Global Methane Hub will support implementation of the pledge by supporting organizations like the CCAC.

Moving forward the CCAC will be a core implementing partner of the GMP. It will work with GMP participating countries to support national planning and implementation. The CCAC Secretariat will serve as point of first contact for GMP countries to clarify domestic needs and priorities and identify sources of technical and financial assistance. The CCAC’s deep country engagement has been a cornerstone of its success in the past decade and will continue to be a vital asset to achieve the GMP’s ambitious methane reduction target.

“Methane mitigation has become increasingly urgent, and we have witnessed its contribution to current warming. Reducing methane emissions by 45% will allow us to prevent 0.3 degrees of warming by 2040, and that’s why the Global Methane Pledge is important,” he said. “The Global Methane Hub will support countries that want to meet the pledge and those that want to go beyond. I am convinced that fighting methane emissions will contribute to climate benefits, but also help contribute to more sustainable energy and food systems.”

Inger Andersen, United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)’s Executive Director, said the Coalition must build on its strong partnership to ensure significant progress toward both climate and clean air goals by 2030.

“At a time when multilateralism must urgently step up to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, the CCAC has demonstrated the power of partnerships to forge leadership and increase action,” she said. “Just as its support to the Kigali Amendment was a major stride in tackling HFCs, we are now looking to the CCAC to further create momentum for methane action and the successful implementation of the Global Methane Pledge. We must now intensify action to rapidly reduce the rate of warming and decarbonize to keep the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5⁰C degrees alive.”

This strong support to the CCAC’s mission and 2030 strategy comes at a time when there is growing global concerns about methane emissions and calls to urgently slow the rate of warming.

“Meeting the Global Methane Pledge will prevent more than 200,000 premature deaths due to air pollution each year by 2030 and more than 60 billion hours of lost work due to heat exposure each year by the 2040s” said Drew Shindell, chair of both the Global Methane Assessment and the CCAC’s Science Advisory Panel. “The increased momentum on methane is a natural outcome of the CCAC’s core efforts to raise awareness of the dual benefits to climate change mitigation and clean air from well-designed emissions reduction strategies.”