European Capacity Building Initiative

Latest publications

Returning following a hiatus due to the pandemic, ecbi convened its annual Bonn and Oxford Seminars, and Fellow Colloquium. ecbi also published many Policy Briefs, Discussion Notes and blog posts during the period covered by the report. The Government of Denmark agreed to provide funding for Phase V for 2022-2025.
February 2023
A new Pocket Guide from ecbi sheds light on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. A key part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, Article 6 sets out the basis for international cooperation on climate action, including both market and non-market mechanisms. Most of the details on how Article 6 will work were finalised in 2021 at COP 26 in Glasgow, meaning it is now ready to become operational. But how, exactly, will these different mechanisms really work in practice? What specific activities will be allowed...
Author:
Axel Michaelowa, Ximena Samaniego, Juliana Kessler, Hanna- Mari Ahonen, and Chris Spence.
October 2022
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...
Author:
Xolisa Ngwadla with contributions by Benito Müller
October 2022
The 2022 Oxford Seminar took place from 5-7 September 2022, at New College, University of Oxford. It was preceded by the ecbi Fellowship Colloquium, attended by senior negotiators from developing countries, from 3-5 September at Magdalen College. Participants discussed key issues in advance of the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November. Sessions addressed: arrangements for intergovernmental meetings;...
September 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...
Author:
Benito Müller; Hanna-Marie Ahonen, Pedro Moura Costa, Daniel Ortega-Pacheco, Moekti (Kuki) Soejachmoen and Charlotte Streck
March 2022
A webinar launch of ecbi's latest policy brief, COP26 Key Outcomes , took place on 3 March 2022, attended by more than 70 people from around the world. The policy brief evaluates the major outcomes of UNFCCC COP26 and looks to the year ahead and, during webinar discussions, speakers urged more action in areas like financing, loss and damage, and adaptation. The summary report of the key discussions can be found here .
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...
Author:
Aglaja Espelage, Axel Michaelowa, Benito Müller, Chris Spence, Christoph Schwarte
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,...
Author:
Christoph Schwarte and Emily Massawa
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...
Author:
Aglaja Espelage, Axel Michaelowa, and Benito Müller with contributions by Kishan Kumarsingh
November 2021

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