The eleventh ecbi Oxford Seminar was held on 10 & 11 September 2015 at Trinity College and the Examination Schools in Oxford, UK. A three-day Fellowship Colloquium took place before the Seminar, from 7-9 September, in Merton College. The Colloquium was attended by 16 Fellows (senior negotiators from developing countries, including the chairs of the LDC Group, the African Group and AOSIS), who were joined by 10 negotiators from Europe for the Oxford Seminar.
On the first day of the Seminar, in Trinity College, participants addressed legal issues and process; adaptation and loss and damage; and mitigation and transparency of action. On the second day, in the Examination Schools, they discussed climate finance; time frames and cycles; and the process/way forward.
Participants also celebrated the launch of the Enhanced Direct Access (EDA) pilot by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) at a dinner on 10 September at Blenheim Palace. A brief introduction to EDA, a new funding modality under the GCF, which focuses on promoting national and sub-national decision-making by ecbi Director Benito Müller was followed by a statement by Ambassador Jan Cedergren, GCF Board Member from Sweden, read out by Ambassador Bo Kjellén, ecbi Advisory Committee co-chair.
Apologising for his absence due to an emergency, Cedergren said: “I would like to leave with you a few words regarding a very important achievement in the Green Climate Fund Board where the host of this seminar, Benito, and ecbi have played a decisive role”. He noted that successful implementation of the EDA Pilots will promote the overall ambitions of the GCF and show the way on how to provide climate finance in a sustainable and innovative way.
This was followed by an after dinner speech by one of the Fellows, Dr Prodipto Ghosh, former Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, who has been very supportive of EDA in India, not only by co-authoring the Delhi Vision Statement [http://finmin.nic.in/workingpaper/DelhiVision_GreenClimateFund.pdf] with Dipak Dasgupta (another ecbi Fellow), but also by co-facilitating the New Delhi Consultation on Consolidation and Devolution of Climate Finance in India.
