The Politics of Implementation
Patterns of methane emissions and implementation ultimately depend on what happens in oil and gas fields, coal mines, beef and dairy farms, landfill sites and more.
Hence understanding how methane policies and regulations, as well as technical methane abatement measures, are being applied and implemented at local levels is absolutely critical.
To explore this, our ‘high level’ research on methane policies is complemented by research with implementing companies, business networks and their intermediaries, as well local ‘on-site’ research on methane abatement in practice. This research focuses on what businesses, managers, technicians and workers actually do, attending to the complex ways in which work routines, investment priorities, technical processes and more affect patterns of methane emissions and implementation. We ask:
- Where, when, to what extent and why are businesses, farms and other implementing actors actually taking methane abatement measures, and reducing their methane emissions as a result? Or if not, then why not?
- How do wider national and international political factors – patterns of non-compliance, corruption, deregulation, green branding, anti-net zero sentiment, and so on – affect patterns of methane abatement activity?
- To what extent is the implementation of abatement measures responsive to policies and regulations, or is it more shaped by other (economic, technical, political, etc.) factors?
- How context-specific are the patterns of, and challenges associated with, methane abatement? How do they vary across sites, sectors and scales?
- How do the practical challenges of implementing methane abatement measures differ from those associated with CO2?
- To what extent does the politics of implementation explain why progress towards limiting methane emissions has been so slow? and
- How, in light of all this, might methane action be strengthened and improved?