Digital Training on MRV systems in Morocco

Opportunities for improvement in the transport sector

Gathering around fourty people online to work on transport data bases and quantify them in a greenhouse gas calculation tool is not an easy task. Yet this is what the TraCS Morocco team achieved with the support of its partner, the Ministry of Equipment, Transport, Logistics and Water (METLE), during the 5 modules of the “MRV (Measurement, Reporting and Verification) Systems in the Transport Sector” training course.

The objective of this interactive training was to build, together with the participants, capacities in data collection and evaluation, to provide basic knowledge on the fundamental concepts and key methodologies for developing and evaluating mitigation scenarios and for monitoring sectoral strategies and national policies on transport decarbonisation and climate change.

The participants were able to identify avenues for improvement, such as including MRV aspects from the outset in sustainable urban mobility planning (SUMPS) or in the strengthening of climate change as a topic in education and scientific research. The training also highlighted the need for close collaboration between the METLE and the Ministry of Interior of Morocco (responsible for urban mobility), in order to strengthen data collection in all urban areas and to build a coherent approach between both ministries. The private sector, for its part, expressed its engagement to support companies in applying the methods studied and to include climate actions in the transport commission’s objectives.

This training was facilitated by the Sustainable Mobility Platform and delivered by international experts from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the International Transport Forum (ITF), the Spanish Observatory of Transport and Logistics (OTLE), and the German Research Institute for Energy and Environment in Heidelberg (IFEU). More than 40 officials and focal points, representing institutional actors, the private sector and professional associations as well as trade union representations, in charge of transport in Morocco, took part in this event. It was a melting pot for learning, sharing and exchange with experts on the general framework, international and national experiences and good approaches for the design and implementation of a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory for the transport sector based on the “Measurement, Reporting and Verification” system.

At the end of this training, the lessons learned and conclusions drawn focused on the need and importance of providing the transport sector in Morocco with an operational, collaborative and sustainable MRV system that will provide a common baseline for regular and reliable collection of data and monitoring of GHG emissions in the sector, so that, ultimately, emissions can be reduced.