Experimentalist governance has shown promise as an approach to environmental policymaking across issues ranging from ocean acidification (Frosch 2026) to water policy (Sabel & Zeitlin 2012) and forestry (Overdevest & Zeitlin 2012). This paper examines the prospects for applying experimentalist governance approaches to the issue of methane emissions. Tackling methane emissions is often considered the single most effective strategy for limiting near term global warming. However, a major challenge is that methane emissions are often underestimated by traditional greenhouse gas inventory methods, requiring a move to measurement-informed inventories. I argue that any such move requires addressing two multi-layered and interlinked challenges: technological constraints and technological governance. Technological constraints relate to the limitations of emerging technologies, and technological governance relates to a lack of standards for new technologies. I examine how one jurisdiction Colorado – historically a leader on methane regulation as the world’s first jurisdiction to regulate oil and gas methane emissions - is approaching methane emissions reporting in light of these challenges. I argue that Colorado’s approach shows similarities and divergences from an experimentalist governance approach. Drawing on the experimentalist governance literature, I suggest that whether Colorado’s approach is successful or not, experimentation is crucial to methane emissions governance given rapid technological evolution is changing the regulatory landscape. Incorporating new technologies into regulatory approaches to address urgent environmental challenges relies on experimentation and learning. The broader theoretical contribution of the paper is to show that more prescriptive regulatory approaches can imitate key elements of an experimentalist governance approach to environmental policymaking.
