Earlier this month LRI participated in the annual Oxford seminar organised by the European Capacity Building Initiative, an Initiative in which LRI is a lead member organisation. Trust building is the leitmotiv of the seminar: it provides an opportunity for senior negotiators from developing countries and from Europe to meet in an informal setting and share views on key negotiation topics that will be on the agenda of the next COP. Key negotiation groups from the developing world, such as BASIC, the LDC Group, the Africa Group, AOSIS and AILAC, are represented in these discussions by their Chairs and/or member countries.

This year, thirty or so negotiators met over 3 days and discussed a range of issues including, for example:

• the work programmes set up under the Global Goal on Adaptation and pre-2030 mitigation ambition and how to focus discussions and process to ensure successful outcomes;
• the new collective quantified goal on climate finance and institutional arrangements that might be needed to operationalize it once finalised;
• aligning financial flows with the Paris Agreement goals;
• institutional arrangements for the Santiago Network on Loss & Damage;
• what the structure and functionality of a facility to finance loss and damage might look like;
• arrangements for intergovernmental meetings and possible solutions to the problems created by the proliferation of agenda items, meetings, mandates and processes at UNFCCC sessions; and
• gender balance at COPs, SBs and in constituted bodies.

With the historic buildings of Magdalen and New College as the backdrop, negotiators listened to the position of other groups and countries on specific issues and engaged in frank and open exchanges. This will hopefully have brought them a step closer as they prepare for COP27 in Egypt in November.