An inception workshop took place in Entebbe, Uganda, on 1 August 2023, to mark the launch of  an ICAT project to enhance transparency of climate action with special focus on the sectors of transport and waste management.

The workshop was attended by national stakeholders and international experts, who presented the objectives and planned activities of the project and discussed the expected outcomes and ways forward.

Transparency is central to making climate change action both effective and beneficial to national development. In this context, ICAT provides countries and regions with tailored support and practical tools and methodologies to build robust transparency frameworks to implement the Paris Agreement and enhance their climate action.

Uganda is a Party to the Paris Agreement and in its latest nationally determined contributions (NDCs), submitted in September 2022, presented an ambitious economy-wide mitigation target of 24.7 per cent reduction compared to the business as usual scenario by 2030. In addition, Uganda’s updated NDCs introduced the country’s commitments to implement a suite of mitigation measures to reduce the country’s emissions in transport and waste, two sectors which were not addressed in the previous NDCs. 

During the decade 2005 to 2015, Uganda’s emissions from the energy sector almost doubled, with the transport sub-sector accounting for around 66 per cent of the emissions in the energy sector (according to Uganda’s first biennial update report). Waste was identified as a sector with significant gaps in the area of the greenhouse gas inventories. 

In line with ICAT’s approach of addressing key national priorities, the Uganda project will seek to address the country’s needs for stronger transparency in these two priority sectors and contribute to the enhancement of Uganda’s climate action and implementation of the NDCs. The project will target essential areas for climate action transparency, such as greenhouse gas inventories, emissions projections and NDC tracking, for each of the two sectors (transport and waste). It is structured around two main objectives:

• Improve the processes and development of greenhouse gas emissions inventories, baseline emissions and emissions projections;
• Develop and implement a framework to track progress made in NDC implementation.

A number of ICAT tools will support the project, such as the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Model (GACMO), and the newly launched Transport Climate Action Data (TraCAD) tool. Once the project is implemented, with the help of these and other tools, the results can be sustained and extended to other sectors.

“Building on improved inventory data, policy makers will be able to assess policies and measures considered for NDC implementation, eventually assessing both Uganda’s contribution to global climate efforts and its national benefits. In addition, the strong MRV frameworks established will help in mobilizing much needed climate finance to enable implementation” said ICAT Director Henning Wuester at his opening remarks at the workshop.

The ICAT project in Uganda is implemented together with the Climate Change Division of Uganda’s Ministry of Water and Environment and the support of international experts from the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute. The project activities are expected to run until March 2024.