The ICAT Toolbox
The ICAT toolbox was updated in 2023 with new tools, guides and methodologies, and it was used by many developing countries to enhance their national transparency frameworks.
The ICAT toolbox is a suite of practical, open-source tools and methodologies to provide effective support to the transparency efforts of countries around the world. Ranging from step-by-step guides, to multi-functional data management tools, the ICAT toolbox provides a wealth of practical, adaptable solutions tailored to the needs of developing countries.
2023 saw the update and expansion of the ICAT toolbox, with new knowledge resources to provide support in several crucial areas:
- An updated Agriculture Methodology: a step-by-step guide that helps countries assess the impact of agricultural policies on greenhouse gas emissions. It can be used to inform policy design and implementation, goal setting and tracking progress, and attracting finance. The guide covers the assessment of policy impacts in livestock, fertilizers, soil carbon, and rice cultivation.
- A suite of tools and methodologies for the monitoring and evaluation of adaptation and loss and damage. They are designed to help decision-makers and other relevant stakeholders to assess adaptation project proposals, evaluate the impacts of losses and damages, and integrate subnational and non-state actors into national M&E systems for adaptation.
- A practical guide on air pollution and climate change: to support countries to integrate air pollution and short-lived climate pollutants into national climate change transparency frameworks. It can be used to develop integrated emission inventories, evaluate the impact of policies, and quantify health benefits and burdens. It provides sector-specific guidance for energy; industrial processes and product use; agriculture, forestry and other land use; and waste.
- A guide on transparency for cooperative approaches under Article 6: to help countries to understand the rules and requirements for reporting and accounting for Article 6 activities, and how to integrate them into national transparency frameworks. It contains information on opportunities and risks of engaging on Article 6, and on the linkages between Article 6 and the enhanced transparency framework.
Throughout 2023, a series of webinars were held to introduce the new additions to the ICAT toolbox, featuring presentations from international experts and transparency practitioners from developing nations. The webinars were attended by a total of 950 participants from all over the world. The new tools and guides were downloaded 3,055 times, in total, in 2023.
An additional ICAT tool released in 2023 is the Transport Climate Action Data (TraCAD) tool. TraCAD is a comprehensive tool that assists countries in assessing the impact of climate policies and actions in the transport sector, including those discussed in ICAT’s Transport Pricing Methodology. It streamlines the data collection process, provides standard methodologies, and offers various functionalities that support the assessment, tracking and reporting of action related to nationally determined contributions (NDCs) in the transport sector. TraCAD is now being used in Antigua and Barbuda and Cambodia to support the development of ambitious policies and strategies in the transport sector.
Over the course of 2023, the ICAT tools and methodologies were applied in different countries to help build and enhance stakeholders’ capacity and the national transparency frameworks. From conducting policy assessments, to collecting, verifying and analyzing data on greenhouse gas emissions, the ICAT toolbox supported countries to gain the knowledge needed for developing more effective climate action.
An example of this comes from Niger, where the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost MOdel (GACMO) was used to track and evaluate NDC implementation in the energy sector, assessing the impact and potential of policies and measures such as those related to solar energy. At the same time, the ICAT agriculture and forestry methodologies were applied to calculate the greenhouse gas impacts of two national policies. These included additional carbon sequestration, and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions linked to agricultural production increase. As part of the upcoming revision of Niger’s NDCs, these results will enable the country to strengthen its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
New, as yet unpublished, methodologies were applied in 2023. Examples include the application of the forthcoming ICAT methodology on climate finance tracking in Belize, Morocco and Senegal; and the application by Nigeria and South Africa of the forthcoming ICAT methodology on the monitoring and evaluation of just transitions.
The valuable feedback and insights garnered from these applications will inform the refinement and finalization of these methodologies, which address critical needs and requests from developing countries. The two methodologies are scheduled to be publicly released in 2024, offering countries a valuable resource to enhance through transparency their climate actions.