Courts of Accounts Across Brazil Receive Training to Evaluate Climate Action Measures

The Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) launched, on May 19, a technical training program for the use of the ClimaBrasil Panel tool. The event is taking place through May 23 at the Serzedello Corrêa Capacity Development Institute in Brasília (DF) and brings together representatives from 33 state and municipal courts of accounts, as well as civil servants and experts. 

The ClimaBrasil Panel is a tool developed by the TCU to enable courts of accounts to assess and monitor the actions taken by state and municipal governments to address climate change. Over the coming months, auditors will conduct diagnostics on local conditions. The resulting data will help build a national overview of climate actions, which will be presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in November, in Belém, Pará. 

The training aims to equip more than 60 auditors from across the country to use the tool effectively. It serves as an opportunity to align concepts and engage key stakeholders. The primary goal is to ensure the expected level of quality in evaluating and addressing the climate emergency. 

TCU Deputy Minister Marcos Bemquerer opened the event and emphasized the importance of courts of accounts’ participation. “This initiative demonstrates the ability of Brazil’s audit institutions to work in a coordinated and integrated manner. Climate change is one of the most urgent and complex issues of our time, with not only environmental but also social and economic impacts,” he stated. 

The audit will pursue four main objectives: to evaluate government actions at the federal, state, and municipal levels; to foster the development of institutional capacities for addressing the climate crisis; to place citizens at the center of government initiatives and public policies; and to communicate relevant information in plain language. 

Government actions will be assessed along three main pillars: governance, public policies, and financing. Evaluations will follow a common metric, enabling the consolidation of results. 

At the opening of the meeting, the President of the Rui Barbosa Institute, Edilberto Pontes, emphasized the role of public institutions in helping the country overcome challenges involving climate issues. “Courts of accounts do not implement public policy, but they play a catalytic role, encouraging debate and ensuring the issue becomes part of the public agenda,” he noted. In his view, the initiative is strategic for advancing Brazil’s environmental action to a new level. 

The President of the Association of Members of Brazilian Courts of Accounts (ATRICON), Edilson Silva, highlighted the importance of the initiative for disaster prevention. “This project demonstrates a strong spirit of cooperation, with the goal of delivering what society expects: safeguarding quality of life through environmental preservation. We must act before catastrophe strikes, it is not enough to simply rebuild cities, as we have recently seen in several cases,” he stressed. 

Throughout the event, participants, including public servants and experts, take part in lectures, hands-on activities, and discussions aimed at familiarizing themselves with the methodology, learning how to use the application for data entry, and beginning local assessments. The program follows the panel’s three thematic pillars. On Tuesday (May 20), the focus will be on governance. On Wednesday and Thursday, the topics will be public policies and financing, respectively. The final day is dedicated to a wrap-up discussion and presentation of the project’s next steps. 

The project is supported by several partner institutions, which were also represented at the meeting. Participants in the opening session included the Legal Director of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), Walter Baère; Maristela Marques, representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); economist Arthur Bragança from the World Bank; and Paola Martinez, Head of Operations at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). 

To learn more about the ClimaBrasil Panel, click here.