European Capacity Building Initiative

ecbi provides sustained capacity building for climate change negotiators, to promote a level playing field between governments in the international climate negotiations. The Initiative aims to facilitate mutual understanding and trust – among developing countries, and between developing and European countries.

News

With over 80,000 participants in the UN “Blue Zone” (and many more in the adjacent host-country “Green Zone”), the recent UN climate change conference (COP28) in Dubai was the largest multilateral climate event ever held. The authors of this 10 February blog post, Good COP? Bad COP? Time to reform COP!), were impressed by the enthusiasm, and the global and diverse involvement of so many stakeholders; yet, in light of their 2021 ecbi Policy Report (Quo Vadis COP?), they felt this...

14 February 2024

ecbi has published its 2023 Annual Report. The Bonn Seminar, Fellows Colloquium, and Oxford Seminar took place during the report period, covering a range of issues of relevance to the intergovernmental climate negotiations, such as the Global Stocktake, climate finance particularly for loss and damage, and Paris Agreement Article 2.1.c on making financial flows consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement. ecbi also published a report assessing Key Outcomes from COP27, as well as an Updated Pocket...

06 February 2024

This 6 February blog post, Nomen est Omen!, begins with a brief historical account of the evolution of the “Loss and Damage” narrative in the multilateral climate negotiations, and ends up with the recent operationalization of the new Loss and Damage Fund. It suggests that if the liability spectre associated with the phrase "Loss and Damage" is too much for some, then perhaps the name of new fund could be more specific, if not “Climate Impact Response Fund” then maybe “Climate...

06 February 2024

On 16 January 2024, the Oxford Martin School hosted a panel discussion reflecting on COP 28 and whether the agreement from that conference (The UAE Consensus) goes far enough. Leading off the discussion, the event moderator, Professor Benito Müller (Environmental Change Institute and ecbi), said the COP began on a sad note for him, as his dear friend and colleague Saleemul Huq had unexpectedly passed away before the COP. He then presented the results of a study...

18 January 2024