This ecbi COP26 Key Outcomes report assesses the Glasgow Climate Summit on the level of political ambition it achieved as well as what it delivered on finance, loss and damage, transparency, common time frames, Article 6, and adaptation. It explains and evaluates key formal COP and CMA decisions, and the pledges and promises by various coalitions on issues ranging from coal to cars, methane to forests. The report suggests that Glasgow neither saved nor doomed us. While it failed to deliver enough political ambition and disappointed in several key areas, it arguably did enough to signal a shift away from business-as-usual. What’s more, COP26 finalised the Paris Rulebook, providing the tools needed to make more significant progress down-the-line. It also looks at what was left unfinished in Glasgow and what needs to happen in 2022 to maximise our chances of moving the needle at COP27 and beyond. 

Authored by experts with many years’ experience following the UNFCCC negotiations, the report features quotes and insights from ecbi’s network of negotiators and delegates who attended COP26.  

The issue of predictable finance is once again on the negotiation table at the 26th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP26) in Glasgow. Relevant – and highly contentious – is the issue of the applicability of Share of Proceeds (SoP) to the operationalisation of the different forms of market-based cooperation under the Paris Agreement (PA). 

Levying a Share of Proceeds (SoP) on mitigation units transferred on international carbon markets can be an important instrument to raise finance for adaptation measures in developing countries. An SoP was first introduced for the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and under the Doha Amendment expanded to all market mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol (KP) – both for adaptation as well as for the funding of administrative costs. Now, notwithstanding that SoP is mentioned in the PA Article 6, how it is applied is a contentious issue in the negotiation in Article 6. 

This Policy Brief, funded by DANIDA and produced on behalf of ecbi by Oxford Climate Policy and Perspectives Climate Research, assesses the current debates surrounding SoP and its potential forms of implementation and makes recommendations for Article 6 negotiations regarding effective and efficient forms of SoP for adaptation and administrative costs. The final section considers ways in which funding predictability could be addressed through applying the idea of earmarking an SoP from the sale of mitigation units or carbon taxes at the regional, national, and sub-national level. North American and European examples are discussed, and it is concluded that multi-billion Euro funding could be generated by applying an SoP comparable to that of the KP mechanisms in this manner.

This Technical Paper produced by OCP/ecbi for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) as part of their Strategic Partnership looks in some detail at the options under consideration in the negotiations on establishing a common time frame for the national targets (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, one of the three top priority issues to be resolved at COP 26 in Glasgow to finalise the Paris rule book.

It analyses them with regard to 3 procedural prerequisites for accounting and maximizing ambition under the Paris Agreement, namely:

·         synchronized NDC end-years, to allow for taking stock of implementation and assessment of collective progress under the 5-yearly Global Stock Takes, as well as other crucial accounting tasks, such as the avoidance of double counting under the Article 6 emission trading regime

·         synchronized 'updating' (ambition enhancement), and

·         a notification window – the time between the communication year and the end year of the preceding NDC – for (first-time) communications of at least 5 years, to maximize the potential of the synchronized ambition enhancement.

The resulting Key Message for Policy Makers sums up the analysis in a succinct summary of why it is essential to adopt the Glasgow Ambition Cycle at COP 26.

Sharing experiences – particularly on the merits of different legislative approaches, lessons learnt, and good practices – can help drive efficient and successful implementation of climate action on the ground, and ultimately more ambitious action under the Paris Agreement. This policy brief considers the experience of four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that have completed or initiated the process of developing framework laws: Kenya (the first country in Africa to adopt a climate change framework law), Eswatini, Nigeria, and Uganda.