Beijing, 12 June 2026 – the Royal Norwegian Embassy (RNE) and the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (CRAES) jointly hosted a thematic seminar, Policy Alignment for Mitigation of Methane: From Regulation to Markets, in Beijing. The event brought together policymakers, scientists, and industry experts to exchange views on methane governance, monitoring technologies, and carbon market integration.
In his opening remarks, H.E. Vebjørn Dysvik, Ambassador of Norway to China, underscored the significance of this seminar for advancing international cooperation on methane abatement, and spoke highly of the phased achievements delivered under China-Norway joint methane projects. Liu Yang, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Climate Change, Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), presented China’s progress and outcomes in methane governance and expressed appreciation to all stakeholders for their sustained support for climate action. Zhang Mengheng, Chief Engineer of CRAES, highlighted the long-standing and productive China-Norway collaboration in environmental protection, affirming CRAES’s commitment to further broadening and deepening bilateral engagement.
The specialist presentation session was moderated by Gao Qingxian, a researcher at CRAES. Guri Storaas, Deputy Director-General of Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment (KLD), systematically outlined Norway’s evolution of methane governance, which has progressively shifted from administrative supervision to market-based incentive mechanisms. Professor Zhang Xiliang from Tsinghua University shared the latest methodological updates on China’s Certified Voluntary Emission Reductions (CCER). Experts from the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC), the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Beijing Office, the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture (Chinese Academy of Sciences), and the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO) engaged in in-depth exchanges covering the development of Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) frameworks for methane and pathways for integrating methane offsets into voluntary carbon markets. Project leads from both countries also jointly reported on the implementation progress and key results of their cooperative methane programme.
Ms. Guri Sandborg, Environmental Counsellor at the RNE, moderated the roundtable forum under the theme From Policy to Market: Overcoming Obstacles to Methane Mitigation. Participants engaged in in-depth discussions on how to align regulatory frameworks with market mechanisms to achieve effective methane mitigation. The seminar comprehensively showcased cutting-edge progress in China-Norway methane cooperation, and relevant research outputs are expected to offer valuable references for global climate governance.
Nearly 50 representatives attended the event, both onsite and online. Participants were from Chinese authorities and affiliated institutions under MEE, Norway’s KLD, the Norwegian Environment Agency, NIBIO, the British Embassy in Beijing, the Embassy of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the EDF Beijing Office, and other Chinese and foreign government agencies, research institutes, enterprises and industry associations.
