Excellencies and Colleagues,
Welcome to the 2025 Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) Ministerial, which targets accelerated action on super pollutants.
In the wake of COP 30, such action is more important than over. Despite many new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), global temperatures are predicted to rise 2.3-2.5C above pre-industrial levels. The multi-decadal average will exceed 1.5C, very likely within the next decade.
The world must minimize this overshoot or face escalating climate impacts. This cannot be done without rapid cuts to methane and other super pollutants. The Global Methane Status Report tells us that projected 2030 methane emissions are lower than earlier forecasts. This is progress. But emissions are still on the rise. Only full-scale implementation of all proven and available control measures will deliver the Global Methane Pledges target of a 30 per cent cut in methane emissions by 2030 and with it a 0.3 C reduction in predicted temperatures by mid-century.
We all must do better. And we all can do better, by building on the ever-growing momentum to tackle super pollutants not just methane, but black carbon, carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone and nitrous oxide.
This momentum is clear.
The UNEP-supported CCAC has grown down the years from a small coalition of the willing to a large coalition of the active.
Some 84 per cent of countries latest NDCs include methane mitigation measures in at least one major sector with CCAC support playing a key role for many nations.
Under UNEPs International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO), 153 companies covering 42 per cent of global oil and gas production have committed to tracking their methane emissions, while responses to IMEOs Methane Alert and Response System grew significantly in 2025.
And just a few weeks ago, the G20, under South Africas leadership, declared clean air a global priority for the first time. This is a boost to implementation of the sixth UN Environment Assembly resolution on regional cooperation and to the Africa Clean Air Programme, which are backed by the Air Quality Management Exchange Platform, under which the CCAC just added new sectoral guidance to the one stop shop for air quality managers.
The CCAC will build on this momentum by backing important initiatives announced at COP 30. These initiatives include the UK-led statement on reducing methane from the fossil fuel sector, which IMEO will also support, and the Farmers Initiative for Resilient and Sustainable Transformations.
And the CCAC is embarking on important new work. At COP 30, the CCAC launched the Super Pollutants Country Action Accelerator, which was captured in the COP 30 Action Agenda. Starting with an initial cohort of seven countries, the accelerator aims to engage up to 30 countries by 2030 and mobilize an estimated US$150 million in grant funding and complementary finance. But we need your help to set up a strong implementation infrastructure that drives action to scale faster.
Just as important is ensuring that what we do works in and for the real economy. The CCAC Global Economic Assessment of Climate and Clean Air, which will be released on World Environment Day 2026, will help to do that. Today we will hear first insights from the modelling and consider how we can use these results to increase ambition and bring more economic actors on board.
Excellencies and colleagues,
We have done much. We have much to do. But I know that, together, we can accelerate action on super pollutants for a resilient planet. Slow climate change. Deliver cleaner air. And save lives.
