The Berlin Mandate, adopted during the early hours of 7 April 1995, marked the end of the first Conference of Parties (COP 1) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Berlin, Germany.1 The Mandate was one of the most important decisions of the COP, paving the way for the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol.2

As Chief Negotiator for Sweden, I participated actively in high-level informal consultations before the Berlin COP. During the COP, I chaired a high-level working group on the Berlin Mandate, which was established at the very beginning of the conference and worked all through, with meetings practically every day. My reflections in this paper seek to provide an insider’s view of the Berlin Mandate process, and draw lessons for the ongoing negotiations for a post-2020 climate regime.

Based on the proceedings of the ecbi meeting on 9 August 2009 at La Redoute in Bonn, a new ecbi Policy Brief concerning Key Issues on Governance of Climate Change Finance has been published, together with written answers by the UK participants to the questions put by Anders Wijkman, the moderator of the meeting.

In their Scenario Note on the sixth part of the second session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), the ADP Co-chairs emphasized that “it is essential to use the October session to make significant progress in clarifying and advancing the content of the 2015 agreement, to build bridges and to work together on outstanding issues. In particular, it will be important in the October session, to further clarify and flesh out the operational aspects of the agreement. Key challenges that will need focussed attention in our work include: deepening the understanding on the longer-term cycle of contributions/commitments, including its periodicity (length) and the functions of the steps proposed, such as any periodical consideration or assessment and review”.

This ecbi/OCP Concept Note by Benito Müller, Xolisa J. Ngwadla (South Africa), Jose D. G. Miguez (Brazil) with Isabel Cavelier Adarve (Colombia), Carlos Fuller (Belize), Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu (DRC), and Nagmeldin G. Elhassan (Sudan) introduces the idea of a Dynamic Contribution Cycle as a contribution to the debate on these issues.