This report elaborates on key outcomes from COP28, held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, namely the Global Stocktake (GST), Loss and Damage, and the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP). It discusses how key decisions were reached, particularly the agreement to include language on "transitioning away from from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner." The document provides an overview of the evolution of loss and damage discussions in the climate negotiations and the new fund agreed to at COP28.
European Capacity Building Initiative
Policy Briefs and Notes
This report focuses on discussions and decisions related to ambition, finance, loss and damage, and the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA). It explains that, while COP27 failed to move the needle closer to the temperature goal of 1.5°C, it did result in an historic (and unexpected) decision to establish a fund and funding arrangements to respond to loss and damage for those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Other significant outcomes the report addresses include agreement on institutional arrangements to operationalise the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage. A decision was also taken to establish a work programme on a just transition and, for the first time, a call was made to reform the multilateral development banks and international financial institutions, so they are aligned with the Paris Agreement and Article 2.1 (c) on making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low emissions and climate-resilient development. Some progress was also made on the mitigation work programme, as well as on the two-year Glasgow-Sharm El-Sheikh work programme on the Global Goal on Adaptation, which is expected to conclude at COP28/CMA5 in Dubai. The report also looks at what needs to happen in 2023 to ensure COP28 further advances on these issues. The report was authored by experts with many years of experience in the UNFCCC negotiations, and features quotes and insights from ecbi’s network of negotiators and delegates who attended COP27.
Publication Date:
March, 2023
Policy brief on L&D Pilot Funding Arrangements: The Need to Pilot Innovative Funding Sources and Response Tools
Publication Date:
November, 2023
Publication Date:
October, 2023
This Discussion Note, titled Sustainable Aviation Fuels - The Way Forward: From Biological to Synthetic Fuels, focuses on the key role Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) play in meeting the aviation industry’s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050.
Publication Date:
September, 2023
The Paris Agreement made significant strides towards the prioritisation of adaptation in the global climate regime. The Paris Agreement codified a Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), including provisions related to communication, reporting, and assessment of progress on adaptation. This goal is being further defined and operationalized in the two-year Glasgow – Sharm el Sheikh work programme, which concludes its work at the end of 2023.
Whilst there are provisions and precedent under the UNFCCC to guide the operationalisation of the GGA, it is important that conceptual convergence is achieved to inform how the work programme unfolds for meaningful outcomes. This is particularly important noting the first global stocktake, which is meant to assess progress towards the GGA, is being undertaken simultaneously.
This OCP/ecbi Discussion Note provides a conceptual analysis, building from existing decisions and agreements, and puts forward two propositions:
- The GGA can be elaborated using risk-based metrics, where the global effort on adaptation is towards reducing risk associated with a changing climate to within ‘acceptable’ levels.
- It further recognises that there are needs and activities associated with the risk reduction effort, particularly planning, implementation of actions, and finance, that are indispensable to achieving the ‘acceptable’ level of risk.
The risk-based metrics can lead to a setting of an overarching goal— Reducing climate impact risk to within levels consistent of a 1.5°C rise in temperature, starting in 2030—, from which Sub Goals can be set for the various adaptation sectors and climate hazards. Similarly, Adaptation Element Targets can be set in respect of needs and activities building on agreed elements of adaptation in Decision 9/CMA.1. The global stocktake can, therefore, assess progress made towards the GGA based on these Goals and Targets.
Publication Date:
October, 2022
Social responsibility is one of the key motivators of voluntary corporate action. It is therefore valuable to harness carbon markets to promote multiple co-benefits in addition to mitigation, including adaptation co-benefits, particularly if they promote global equity by generating resources to support those who suffer most from adverse impacts of climate change while having contributed least to causing it - for example through a Share of Proceeds for Adaptation (SOPA).
The Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) thus has the unique opportunity to explore the value proposition that a SOPA can provide stakeholders. Given the political buy-in that SOPA can bring about, as observed during the CDM development, and the policy need to align with the provisions of the Paris Agreement, this OCP/ecbi Discussion Note recommends that ongoing efforts to improve the governance of the VCM should strive to:
- encourage standard setters to promote a SOPA;
- incorporate regulatory provisions for a SOPA into VCM as a key component of good governance and a high-level principle for the market, to ensure environmental and social non-carbon positive impacts; and
- enhance coordination of supply and demand oversight efforts, to foster synergies towards effective SOPA implementation and delivery.
Publication Date:
March, 2022
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.
Publication Date:
January, 2022
This briefing paper examines the key equity issues in the current climate change negotiations leading to COP 15 in Copenhagen. In this connection the paper focuses on the negotiating text emerging from the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA). Under the “Bali Action Plan” the AWG-LCA is tasked to conduct “a comprehensive process to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term cooperative action, now, up to and beyond 2012, in order to reach an agreed outcome and adopt a decision at its fifteenth session” (in Copenhagen in 2009).
Publication Date:
August, 2009
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.
Publication Date:
November, 2021
