WRI’s comprehensive database on global climate change was made available on-line in time for the Climate Change Convention’s 10th Conference of the Parties (COP-10) in Buenos Aires, Argentina in December 2004.
The Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT) (http://cait.wri.org) includes a comprehensive and comparable database of greenhouse gas emissions data (including all major emission sources and sinks) and other climate-relevant indicators covering 186 countries. CAIT allows users to choose particular years, sectors, gases, and countries to display, thus enabling a wide range of analyses and comparisons. It also provides socioeconomic and other indicators related to economic development, energy use, and fossil fuel reserves.
WRI’s goal is for CAIT to become a common information platform used by all stakeholders to evaluate climate change policy; the primary resource for researchers, advocates, policy-makers, the media, and the academic community. We are already moving rapidly toward this goal. Just over a year after its original release, more than 1,800 individuals from 108 countries are already using this tool. NGOs are using CAIT to help formulate advocacy strategies. Researchers are using CAIT to analyze the evolution of the climate change policy and the Kyoto Protocol. Government delegates and policy-makers use CAIT to better understand their own countries’ circumstances relative to others. CAIT also serves the needs of journalists, consultants, corporate executives, educators, students, and others.
The UN Climate Convention negotiations, as well as many individual governments, have officially recognized or endorsed CAIT. For example, in advance of the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP-10) to the Climate Convention, Australian officials stated that “CAIT has been of great use and has afforded policy makers insights into the significance of a wider range of variables to climate policy.” European Union officials found CAIT to be “the best example of the way forward and a useful tool for serving Parties’ needs,” while the New Zealand government recommended creating opportunities “for all Parties to become familiar with the use of CAIT.”
