Climate Policy Assessment Tool (CPAT)
Source details
- Canonical URL
- Climate Policy Assessment Tool (CPAT)
Other formats
Access and Core Team
- Government representatives can request the tool by reaching out through their country’s respective Executive Director (ED) office.
- CPAT has been developed by IMF and WB staff with contributions from a large range of individuals.
- Core staff: Simon Black, Ian Parry, Nate Vernon, Karlygash Zhunussova, Lukas Adamski, Daniel Bastidas, Cristian Chagalj, Jing Han, Alberto Garcia Huitron, Mariza Montes de Oca Leon, Danielle Minnett, Alpa Shah, Sunalika Singh.
- World Bank Group team contributed to the World Bank side of CPAT, providing additional technical guidance and examples of use.
Purpose, Scope, and Outputs
- The IMF-World Bank Climate Policy Assessment Tool (CPAT) is a spreadsheet-based model which helps policymakers to assess, design, and implement climate mitigation policies.
- CPAT allows for the rapid estimation of effects of climate mitigation policies for over 180 countries.
- Outputs and impacts estimated include:
- energy demand and prices
- emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs)
- fiscal revenues
- GDP and welfare
- distributional impacts on households and industries
- development co-benefits such as welfare benefits from reductions in local air pollution and road accidents
- CPAT provides consistent cross-country estimates of projections of emissions, fuel use by major energy sector, mitigation effort, and efficient fuel prices.
Policies Covered
- Carbon pricing: carbon taxes and ETSs
- Fossil fuel subsidy reform
- Energy price liberalization
- Electricity and fuel taxes
- Methane fees
- VAT harmonization
- Energy efficiency and emission rate regulations
- Feebates
- Renewable subsidies and feed-in tariffs
- Green public investments
- Combinations of the above policies
- Policies are evaluated against a range of metrics to assess tradeoffs and tailor reforms to country contexts.
Methodology, Design, and Features
- The tool is transparent and user-friendly, requiring little prior knowledge and no external data to run.
- CPAT is parameterized to be broadly consistent with a wide range of ex ante models as well as the ex post empirical literature.
- CPAT evolved from an earlier IMF tool and has been significantly upgraded to include more policies, sectors, fuels, and impacts.
- For details on methodology, key inputs, assumptions, outputs, and caveats, a methodological Working Paper is available.
Uses and Applications
- IMF staff have used CPAT extensively in IMF flagship reports and country-level analyses, including:
- Fiscal Monitor
- World Economic Outlook
- Selected Issues Papers informing Article IV surveillance
- Technical assistance reports
- Regional analyses
- Thematic papers
- Examples of country and regional analyses using CPAT include:
- Climate Adaptation and Energy Reform: Strengthening Botswana’s Macroeconomic Resilience
- Emerging Climate and Energy Transition Issues: Kingdom of the Netherlands - The Netherlands
- Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Challenges: Nigeria
- Deep Dive on the Climate Transition for France: Macroeconomic Implications, Fiscal Policies, and Financial Risks
- People’s Republic of China: Selected Issues
- Chile: Technical Assistance Report-An Evaluation of Improved Tax Options
- Republic of Madagascar: Technical Assistance Report-Climate Macroeconomic Assessment Program
- Scaling up Climate Mitigation Policy in Germany
- A Comprehensive Climate Mitigation Strategy for Mexico
- A Low-Carbon Future for the Middle East and Central Asia: What are the Options?
- Regional Economic Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean, October 2021
- Surging Energy Prices in Europe in the Aftermath of the War: How to Support the Vulnerable and Speed up the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels
- Examples of global and thematic analyses using CPAT include:
- Underpriced and Overused: Fossil Fuel Subsidies Data 2025 Update
- Cutting Emissions, Securing Energy: Macroeconomic Assessment for COP30
- Fiscal Implications of Global Decarbonization
- A Framework for Comparing Climate Mitigation Policies Across Countries
- Getting on Track to Net Zero: Accelerating a Global Just Transition in This Decade
- Proposal for an International Carbon Price Floor Among Large Emitters
- How to Cut Methane Emissions
- Carbon Taxes or Emissions Trading Systems?: Instrument Choice and Design
- Climate Crossroads: Fiscal Policies in a Warming World
- Fiscal Policy from Pandemic to War
- How to Mitigate Climate Change
Content in this bundle
- Chapter 2. Coordinating Taxation Across Borders. IMF Fiscal Monitor, April 2022
References