The EU Methane Strategy, published by the European Commission in October 2020, covers several areas of human activity.

For the energy sector, the focus is on fugitive emissions from oil and gas production, supply infrastructure and end use, rather than from coal mining. In light of the international nature of emissions from EU energy-supply chains, this is the right approach and the strategy should be used as a tool in climate diplomacy. In the case of methane from coal mines, EURACOAL highlights in a new position paper several actions at the EU level that would further encourage the mitigation of this methane, turning an environmental issue into a clean energy resource.