European Capacity Building Initiative

Policy Briefs and Notes

Bulk purchasing technology under the non-market approaches (NMAs) defined in Article 6.8 of the Paris Agreement could help developing countries to reduce the costs of climate-friendly technology. This policy brief describes how such NMAs could allow groups of developing countries to drive down costs by pooling procurement, and using reverse auctioning to “discover” the lowest price.

Author:
Benito Müller, Axel Michaelowa & Anne-Kathrin Weber. Contributions from Diann Black-Layne, Rene Orellana Halkyer, and Saurabh Kumar
Publication Date:
March, 2021

Agreement on the rules for "cooperative approaches" under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement will now not be possible until at least late 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, countries will not be able to decide the role of cooperative approaches in their first Nationally Determined Contributions, which are meant to be finalised by the end of 2020 and implemented from the start of 2021. This policy brief summarises the progress made on Article 6 at the last UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid in 2019, and the key elements that still need to be agreed, to help negotiators and political leaders find common landing ground and resolve this issue by the end of 2021. Read it in conjunction with our 2019 policy brief of Article 6, which provides a more comprehensive explanation of each element.

Author:
Axel Michaelowa, Aglaja Espelage & Benito Müller
Publication Date:
December, 2020

Most countries will follow paragraph 24 of Paris Decision 1/CP.21 in the absence of agreement on an Ambition Cycle at the next climate conference. This comes with significant risks - not only to national ambition to address climate change and its impacts, but also to the process of assessing overall global progress, and of replenishing climate funds on the basis of national needs.

Author:
Benito Müller and Kishan Kumarsingh
Publication Date:
August, 2020

The international community has increasingly signalled a commitment to address gender issues in the global climate change negotiations, and in national-level implementation of climate action. This policy brief explores how this commitment has been put into practice, and identifies key challenges that still remain.

Author:
Margaux Granat, Emilia Reyes, and Bridget Burns
Publication Date:
March, 2020

At the 2019 Climate Change Conference in Madrid, Spain, crunch issues  – an unambiguous call for much higher climate ambition to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, finance for the loss and damage caused by climate impacts, a fail-safe market mechanism that does not compromise environmental integrity, and credible financial contributions to enable action in developing countries – proved too difficult to resolve within the high-pressure, time-deficient confines of a COP, despite a two-day extension and the resilience and staying power of seasoned diplomats.

Author:
Anju Sharma, Axel Michaelowa, Aglaja Espelage, Jennifer Allan & Benito Müller
Publication Date:
January, 2020

The governance arrangements for the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage and its Executive Committee have been contested since the conclusion of negotiations on Article 8 of the Paris Agreement. Which supreme body – the Conference of the Parties (COP), the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA), or both – is / are responsible for guiding their work? This brief addresses legal and practical aspects of the governance debate.

Author:
Doreen Stabinsky
Publication Date:
November, 2019

What's holding up the Article 6 negotiations? Can differences be resolved at the 25th Conference of Parties (COP25) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change? This policy paper explains the crunch issues in Article 6 negotiations in generally accessible language. It sheds light on the key differences between negotiating Parties on the eve of COP25 in Madrid. Understanding the issues and Party positions is a key step to identify solutions in these highly political and technically complex negotiations. 

Author:
Axel Michaelowa, Aglaja Espelage & Benito Müller
Publication Date:
November, 2019

A  brief introduction to climate finance

Author:
Anju Sharma
Publication Date:
October, 2014

Conventional “CO2-equivalent” emissions calculated using 100-year “Global Warming Potentials” do not consistently reflect the impact of emissions on global temperature: they overstate the impact of constant emissions of any short-lived climate pollutant such as methane by a factor of about four, while understating the large impact of changes in methane emission rates. Myles Allen and Michelle Cain from the University of Oxford explain how CO2-e emissions can nevertheless be used to calculate “warming-equivalent” emissions to inform burden-sharing discussions, mitigation policies in crucial sectors such as agriculture, and stocktakes of progress towards a global temperature goal.

Author:
Myles Allen and Michelle Cain
Publication Date:
October, 2019

This flyer highlights the importance of bringing together all countries on the same page with a common NDC time frame, to enhance ambition and at the same time enable more equitable global outcomes.

Author:
Publication Date:
August, 2019

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