Africa’s struggle with mounting waste and rising methane emissions is often overshadowed by debates about carbon dioxide. Yet methane, a gas far more potent in the short term, is quietly shaping the continent’s air quality, food security, and climate trajectory. Against this backdrop, Google’s new partnership with U.S.-based Vaulted Deep to both remove carbon and rigorously measure avoided methane emissions is more than a corporate sustainability experiment, it is a signal of where global climate finance and innovation may head next, and why Africa cannot afford to ignore it.
The agreement, announced in mid-September, commits Google to removing 50,000 tones of carbon dioxide by 2030, with verification from the carbon removal registry Isometric. The real innovation, however, lies in the decision to measure methane that never reaches the atmosphere when organic waste is diverted from landfills and injected deep underground. If successful, the effort could finally provide a credible methodology for valuing methane avoidance, something that has eluded policymakers and markets for decades.
Over a 20-year period, methane can trap about 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide, according to united nations environmental programme. It is also a primary precursor to ground-level ozone, which harms respiratory health and reduces crop yields. In the United States alone, ozone pollution linked to methane costs farmers billions annually. For Africa, where agriculture is the backbone of livelihoods and urban waste management is chronically underfunded, unchecked methane represents both a climate threat and an economic loss.
Vaulted Deep’s technology addresses the problem at its root. Organic waste, from food scraps to agricultural residues, is processed into a slurry and injected into geological formations where it cannot decompose and emit methane. The idea is simple: by removing waste from the surface environment, the process blocks the conditions under which methane forms. Communities in the U.S. where the technology has been piloted have reported cleaner air and reduced odor, alongside the climate benefits.
Read also: Nigeria cancels 1,263 mining licenses in a bid to clean up solid minerals sector
The real breakthrough, if it comes, will be in measurement. Unlike carbon dioxide, which is relatively straightforward to track and verify, methane emissions are highly variable, shaped by moisture, temperature, and microbial activity. As noted by researchers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, this complexity has meant that methane avoidance is rarely counted in carbon markets, leaving cities and operators without financial incentives to tackle it. According to Google, Vaulted Deep, and registry partner Isometric, their collaboration aims to change that by publishing rigorous protocols and sharing results openly, potentially setting standards that could be applied worldwide.
This is where Africa enters the picture. The African Development Bank proves that organics account for more than 50 percent of municipal solid waste on the continent. With rapid urbanization, municipal waste volumes are expected to double by 2030, while formal collection services lag behind. The result, as documented by UNEP and World Bank studies, is sprawling dumpsites such as Nairobi’s Dandora or Lagos’s Olusosun, where organic waste rots unchecked, emitting methane into the atmosphere. Unlike carbon dioxide emissions from power plants or vehicles, these flows are rarely measured precisely, which makes them invisible in climate accounting and difficult to finance.
Some African cities have begun to act. Durban’s landfill gas-to-electricity projects, according to South Africa’s Department of Energy, remain continental pioneers, showing that methane can be captured and converted into usable energy. Lagos has long discussed similar efforts, though implementation has been uneven. Nairobi has explored biogas projects and composting pilots, though scale remains a challenge. Analysts note that the common barrier across these examples is financing, without verified credits or reliable valuation of avoided methane, such projects struggle to compete for scarce investment.
This is why the Google–Vaulted Deep experiment matters for Africa. A verified, globally recognized methodology for measuring avoided methane could unlock new flows of climate finance for waste projects. With credible data, a city like Accra could seek investment to upgrade its landfills and recover gas, while cooperatives in rural Kenya or Uganda could monetize avoided methane from community biogas digesters. In practice, this would mean cleaner air in cities, new energy sources for households, and higher resilience for farmers affected by ozone-driven crop losses.
Read also: South Africa’s mining liberalisation opens new frontier for Indian capital and skills
Of course, deep injection technology itself may not be the right fit for Africa in the near term. Subsurface geology, regulatory oversight, and public trust are prerequisites that many countries are still building. Moreover, as community groups around Dandora have repeatedly stressed, dumpsites are also sources of livelihood; solutions that simply bury waste without social safeguards risk harming the vulnerable. For many contexts, lower-tech interventions, such as decentralized digesters, composting facilities, or landfill gas capture, will be both safer and faster to implement.
The lesson from Google’s deal is therefore not to import U.S. technology wholesale, but to insist on the same principle: methane must be measured, valued, and integrated into climate strategies. By doing so, Africa can reposition its waste crisis as an opportunity for climate finance and sustainable development. Transparent MRV (measurement, reporting, and verification) protocols could allow African governments to attract investment, while regional bodies like the African Union could embed methane explicitly into climate policy frameworks alongside carbon dioxide.
Read also: KEY 2026 puts Africa at the heart of global clean energy conversations
Google’s partnership with Vaulted Deep is a reminder that solutions to climate change are not only about removing carbon but also about preventing gases that never get counted. For Africa, where methane from waste is both a climate liability and a local health hazard, the opportunity is to build systems that reward prevention, empower communities, and deliver tangible co-benefits. If the continent can seize that moment, its waste challenge could become a lever for resilience rather than a symbol of neglect.
