educing methane emissions is one of the most cost-effective options for limiting the impact of the energy sector on climate. However, it is impossible to design and implement effective methane policies without access to detailed and reliable data on the scale and sources of the emissions. There is an immediate need for national emissions monitoring and reporting schemes that are effective and based on comparable methodologies. 

Action to reduce CH4 emissions requires a good understanding of emission sources at national, subnational and local levels. In most developed economies with an active coal mining sector, emissions from coal mines are included in domestic inventories. The latter quantify emissions that occur during mining, as well as from post-mining activities of processing, storage and transportation, and thus play an essential role in determining the scale of emissions, planning mitigation policies, and implementing effective actions. Monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) programmes at local level help governments to better understand the local coal mining industry’s contribution to the methane and other GHG emissions, and to identify the most promising mitigation opportunities