The annual ecbi Fellowships and Oxford Seminar was held between August 25-31st amongst the distinguished colleges of Oxford University, UK. The Fellowships and Oxford Seminar form the core of the ecbi, building trust and knowledge between the ecbi Fellows (south-south trust building) and between the Fellows and their European counterparts (north-south trust building). The proceedings began at Exeter College at the informal Fellowship Colloquium. Over three days, the Fellows exchanged views and shared experiences on topics chosen by them, along with invited experts. The closed sessions provide a frank and informal dialogue to build trust and exchange procedural and institutional knowledge amongst the fellows. The Colloquium also established the topics to be discussed in the Oxford Seminar. The Fellows were then joined by government representatives from European Partner countries and the European Commission. It was held at the Oxford Union and the closed sessions provided an opportunity to discuss stumbling blocks to the UNFCCC negotiations in a non-confrontational environment. The Fellows raised many procedural and institutional issues of importance surrounding the negotiations. Along with this, the European partners were able to better understand the situation of their developing country colleagues. The developing country Fellows put forward the idea of a standing Finance Committee of the COP, to provide support to the COP in exercising its functions with respect to the Financial Mechanism (FM) of the UNFCCC, and to carry out any other task related to climate finance the COP chooses to assign. This was subsequently presented by one of them at the Geneva Dialogue on Climate Finance.
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