A key limitation of the UN climate change negotiations is the lack of a level playing field between delegations, both North-South, and South-South. Other major obstacles to successful outcomes are mutual misunderstanding and lack of trust, particularly between industrialised and developing countries. The European Capacity Building Initiative (ecbi) is aimed at overcoming these limitations and obstacles through a number of capacity and trust building activities, subsumed under three complementary integrated Programmes.

The focus of Phase I (2005-07) was on collaborations with countries from Europe (in the wider sense), the G5 (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa), Sub-Saharan Africa and South/Southeast Asia. In Phase II (2008-12) it is planned to include Latin America.