ecbi Publications
ecbi's Publications and Policy Analysis Unit (PPAU) generates information and advice for developing country negotiators that is relevant to the climate negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Developing countries often lack the economic and institutional capacity for policy analysis. If negotiators are unable to engage proactively by submitting proposals, responding to proposals from other States, and assessing the impact of global climate policy decisions on their individual States, progress in the negotiations can be hampered by the lack of alternatives and uncertainity. The differences in analytic capacity between developing countries and the industrialised world are often profound – developing countries lack support from organisations like the OECD, for instance, which has an immense apparatus producing thorough and focused reports, including direct advice on future policy responses to each of member country.
ecbi publications aim to be relevant to ongoing negotiations under the UNFCCC, timely, and trustworthy. PPAU works with negotiators from developing countries, sometimes through Editorial Committees, to identify UNFCCC issues where further analysis and policy advice is needed. Global experts are then teamed up with negotiators from devleoping countries to produce Policy Briefs and Discussion Notes. This partnership between experts and negotiators helps to ensure that the process of producing a Brief addresses the specific concerns of developing country negotiators; builds the capacity of developing country co-authors in policy analysis; and also builds ownership of the analysis.
For new negotiators, and for use in ecbi Regional and Pre-COP Training Workshops, PPAU produces Background Papers and a series of Pocket Guides. These generally provide a more basic analysis of issues for newcomers to the process, along with the background and history of the issue in the negotiations.
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A great deal of confusion has resulted from the fact that it has hitherto not been possible for the GCF Board to agree on definitions for some of the key nouns referred to in the GCF Governing Instrument in the context of who can access GCF funding. This Concept Note by Benito Müller proposes the following definitions in terms of the GCF accreditation categories:
• Implementing Entity (IE): an entity accredited by the GCF to access GCF funding.
• Project Implementing Entity: an IE accredited for project management.
• Funding Entity: an IE accredited to award grants and/or allocate funding.
• Intermediary: an IE accredited for on-lending and/or blending.
This OCP/ecbi submission to the Standing Committee on Finance summarizes the most recent developments regarding the relations between the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund and proposes that with regard to this particular relationship, the SCF should focus on how to make best use of existing complementarities between the two funds.
Having been established more than a decade ago to address the urgent and immediate needs of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) especially vulnerable to the impact of climate change, the Least Developed Countries Fund for Climate Change (LDCF) still struggles to obtain adequate and predictable funding. The Global Environment Facility, the operating entity of the LDCF, has been unable to program LDCF resources at the level of around US$200 million per year, as proposed in the Programming Strategy for the LDCF.
More generally, this Think Piece by Benito Müller argues, a success at the UN Climate change summit Paris in December will require a significant finance package which is not ad hoc, but rather provides genuine longer-term predictability. In addition to using the proceeds of new international market mechanisms, we think there is also a need to look at innovative sources at the national and sub-national level.
The Report describes the accomplishments of the ecbi in the FY2014/15. For one, the 2014 Oxford Fellowships and Seminar resulted in an OCP/ecbi Concept Note on a ‘Dynamic Contribution Cycle’ which has since become a prominent and promising option in the ADP negotiating text.
On 13 October 2014, the eve of Eighth meeting of the Barbados Green Climate Fund Board we organized a GCFB Caucus seminar to discuss the findings of an ecbi Policy Brief on Devolved Access Modalities: Lessons for the Green Climate Fund from Existing Practice. It was widely acknowledged that this was very helpful and conducive to the Board’s decision to request the Secretariat to prepare Terms of Reference for operationalising an Enhanced Direct Access pilot phase. Subsequently, we were able to have certain suggestions based on two ecbi Policy Papers (Consolidation and devolution of national climate finance: The case of India and Engaging Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in developing countries) reflected in the GCF Secretariat document on Additional Modalities that Further Enhance Direct Access: Terms of Reference for a Pilot Phase (published on 5 March 2015).
Last, but by no means least, we co-hosted a discussion meeting convened with the Heinrich Boell Foundation North America on 7 December 2014 (during UN Climate Conference in Lima/Peru) to discuss how the role and function of existing adaptation funding instruments might be shifting in the future with a special focus of the conversation on the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund. The event was very well received and has since led to a close collaboration with the Adaptation Fund Board Chair and Secretariat on these matters.
The 2015 ecbi Bonn Seminar, which marked its tenth anniversary this year, took place on 7 June in the Altes
Rathaus, Bonn. It was attended by over 25 negotiators and participants from developing countries and Europe.
Participants discussed the minimum requirements for the 2015 Paris Climate Conference to be considered
a success; county contributions with regard to sequencing, reviews and assessments; and the Paris finance
package.
The Seminar was opened by ecbi Director Benito Müller, who welcomed participants, and introduced the
agenda.
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.
Sequencing Contributions in the 2015 Paris Agreement
Operationalising the Global Goal for Adaptation
