In 2024, Forever Sabah began working in partnership with the Energy Commission of Sabah (ECoS) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to raise awareness of methane emissions from Sabah’s onshore gas sector, supporting cross-sector dialogue on needs and opportunities for methane mitigation in and facilitating direct measurements of methane from onshore liquified natural gas facilities (a first in Malaysia and the region), in partnership with Sabah’s gas sector.

The ultimate aim of this work is to support the development of oil and gas (O&G) sector methane policy and regulations in Sabah in alignment with the goals of the Sabah Energy Roadmap and Masterplan 2040 (SE RAMP 2040) and Malaysia’s commitments under the Global Methane Pledge.

The work is being implemented by Forever Sabah, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Malaysia, Partners of Community Organizations in Sabah (PACOS Trust), Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), and our UK- and US-based partners Ecosystem2 and PSE Healthy Energy. The project is implemented in collaboration with the Energy Commission of Sabah (ECoS) and the Sabah Climate Registry and Inventory Centre (SaCRIC). Beginning in 2026, the current phase of work focuses on three areas:

• Supporting measurement: Provision of high quality methane sensor equipment and trainings in direct measurements will support a collaborative effort between State agencies, local research institutions, international methane experts and Sabah Energy Corporation (SEC) to gather accurate, measurement-based methane emissions estimates of Sabah’s onshore gas infrastructure.
• Public awareness raising: Through a digital media campaign, private sector outreach, and cross-sector meetings and convenings, we will develop literacy together around methane, opportunities and need for mitigation, and the importance of transparent, publicly accessible data. Community workshops will focus on knowledge sharing around the health impacts of methane co-pollutants with O&G facility-adjacent communities and listening to their experiences, with the additional possibility of modeling air pollutants for policymakers to understand health impacts.‍
• Building policy readiness: Through cross-sector coordination, we will develop a cross-sector Sabah Methane Roadmap to provide clarity and planning to reduce emissions from Sabah’s largest methane emitting sub-sectors. Trainings tailored to Sabah’s context and examples from other subnationals will also help the State to build readiness to begin developing Sabah O&G methane policy and regulations.

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