Carbon Mapper and UNEP IMEO Partner to Scale Satellite Methane Detection for Oil and Gas Mitigation

Carbon Mapper and the UN Environment Programme's International Methane Emissions Observatory have announced a partnership to scale up actionable satellite methane data and accelerate mitigation efforts across the global oil and gas sector, with Carbon Mapper providing granular emissions data on super-emitter events to support IMEO's Methane Alert and Response System in select jurisdictions. The partnership will integrate Carbon Mapper's data derived from Planet Labs' Tanager satellite into MARS, which currently draws on more than 35 satellites to alert countries and governments of major emissions events and has catalysed and verified action to mitigate emissions across four continents. Tanager's detection threshold as low as 100 kilograms of methane per hour with high spatial resolution enables attributable facility-level data that unlocks rapid notifications on a larger fraction of global super-emitter events than most public satellites can deliver.

 

The MARS System and Its Demonstrated Impact

 

IMEO's Methane Alert and Response System, launched in 2022, was created to translate global satellite observations into climate action by alerting governments and operators of major emission events through an integrated system combining scientific expertise and advanced AI models. To date, MARS has enabled the mitigation of over 40 major emission events with a combined climate impact equivalent to 23 million gasoline-powered cars driven for a year, providing a quantified measure of the system's real-world mitigation effectiveness that justifies continued investment in its expansion and improvement. Martin Krause, Climate Change Division Director at UNEP, said cutting methane at scale requires more than detection and that UNEP has built a global system bringing together data, partners and decision-makers to drive action, describing Carbon Mapper's contribution as a valuable part of the wider effort to faster scale methane mitigation worldwide.

The partnership's scope encompasses capacity building and knowledge sharing to increase stakeholders' ability to use emissions data for monitoring and mitigation through training and tools, direct engagement with industry and government stakeholders to promote data-driven methane reduction solutions and advancement of global methane monitoring approaches and access. This three-pillar structure reflects the recognition that satellite detection data, however precise, does not automatically translate into emissions mitigation without active engagement with the operators and regulators who have the authority and capacity to take corrective action. Riley Duren, CEO of Carbon Mapper, said sustained engagement can translate methane data into targeted action and that it is time to scale up measures with proven results, expressing commitment to bringing data and expertise together with UNEP and IMEO to expand solutions internationally.

 

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Demonstrated Mitigation Results from Existing Deployments

 

Carbon Mapper's track record of translating satellite detection into verified emissions mitigation provides a credible evidence base for the IMEO partnership's ambitions. California's Satellite Methane Program has used Carbon Mapper data to address 26 large emissions events within the state since May 2025, advancing California's goal of cutting methane emissions 40 percent by 2030. A broader US pilot programme between August and December 2025 issued 60 notifications covering more than 50 unique sources, with the first five months of operation supporting confirmed mitigation of 10 sources by state agencies, industry operators and follow-up observations, and acknowledgement of notification receipt and investigation on an additional five sources.

The pilot programme results demonstrate that a notification-based approach to methane super-emitter mitigation can achieve meaningful action rates when the data is precise enough to attribute emissions to specific facilities and the engagement process creates clear accountability for investigating and remediating detected events. The transition from US state-level deployment to international scale through the IMEO MARS partnership extends this proven engagement model into the global oil and gas sector across multiple jurisdictions, with IMEO's existing government and operator relationships providing the institutional access needed to ensure that Carbon Mapper notifications reach decision-makers with the authority to act.

 

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Outlook for Global Methane Super-Emitter Mitigation

 

The Carbon Mapper and IMEO partnership contributes to the broader ecosystem of initiatives working to translate the unprecedented transparency enabled by the growing constellation of methane-sensing satellites into verified emissions reductions at scale. The Global Methane Pledge, with 160 signatory governments committed to cutting methane emissions 30 percent by 2030, provides the political mandate that IMEO's MARS system supports through its alert and verification capabilities, while partnerships with Bloomberg Philanthropies, Global Methane Hub and others provide the financial and institutional infrastructure for sustained global monitoring. Whether the partnership can significantly expand the fraction of global super-emitter events that result in verified mitigation will depend on the pace of MARS notification expansion into new jurisdictions and the responsiveness of government and industry stakeholders in those jurisdictions to data-driven engagement.

Sustained mitigation of super-emitter events at scale across the global oil and gas sector would contribute meaningfully to near-term climate goals given methane's potent warming effect over short time horizons, making the Carbon Mapper and IMEO collaboration one of the more immediately impactful climate action partnerships in the current landscape. The convergence of improving satellite detection capability, established MARS engagement infrastructure and growing regulatory frameworks for methane disclosure and reduction creates conditions in which data-driven super-emitter mitigation can achieve substantially greater scale and verified impact over the next several years than has been possible with previous generations of monitoring technology.

 

Source: PRNewswire