European Capacity Building Initiative

Latest publications

A pilot Regional Workshop for the Caribbean, on 30 and 31 October 2019 in Tobago, was attended by 17 participants from the region. Sessions, mostly led by senior negotiators from the region, were held on the politics and science of climate change, loss and damage, mitigation and the NDCs, climate finance, the enhanced transparency framework, and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Mock negotiation sessions also took place, to give the trainees a chance to practice interventions in a formal UN-...
October 2019
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
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...
Author:
Axel Michaelowa, Aglaja Espelage & Benito Müller
November 2019
The 2019 Oxford Seminar took place from 11-13 September 2019, in the Oxford Town Hall. It was preceded by the ecbi Fellowship Colloquium, attended by 23 senior negotiators from developing countries (two participated virtually), from 9-11 September. They were joined by 20 senior negotiators from Europe for the Seminar. Opening the Seminar, the Lord Mayor of Oxford, Craig Simmons, described efforts to address climate change, including through declaring a climate change emergency in the city.
September 2019
A brief introduction to climate finance
Author:
Anju Sharma
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 “...
Author:
Myles Allen and Michelle Cain
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.
August 2019
The 2019 ecbi Regional Training Workshop for Asia and the Pacfic was held on 31 July and 1 August in Kathmandu, Nepal. The workshop, attended by 31 participants from the region, was organised in collaboration with Prakriti Resources Centre and hosted by the Ministry of Forests and Enviornment, Nepal.
July 2019
The 2019 ecbi Bonn Seminar was hosted by the City of Bonn in the Altes Rathaus on 23 June. It was attended by 40 climate negotiators from 30 developing and European countries. A welcoming address was delivered by Stefan Wagner, Head of the Department of International Affairs and Global Sustainability, City of Bonn. Discussions followed on common time frames; the collective quantified goal for climate finance and innovative sources; financing the transition to net-zero; and the Article 6...
Author:
Anju Sharma
July 2019
Updated after Katowice, the 2019 version of this Pocket Guide takes into account the Paris rulebook agreed in 2018, to provide a succinct description and analysis of the new "enhanced transparecy framework" under the UNFCCC. The Pocket Guide aims to be useful for UNFCCC negotiators, and for national government representatives who have to translate and implement the transparency arrangements on the ground.
Author:
Harro van Asselt, Romain Weikmans and J.Timmons Roberts
June 2019

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