EU proposes billions for climate fight fund

(BRUSSELS) - Europe on Thursday proposed tens of billions of euros in global aid for poor nations to fight global warming, amid fears that UN climate talks in December are gridlocked before they start.

The European Union financing proposal "aims to maximise the chances of concluding an ambitious global climate change agreement at the December UN climate conference in Copenhagen," its executive arm said in a statement.

"With less than 90 days before Copenhagen we need to make serious progress in these negotiations," EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said.

"That is why the commission is putting the first meaningful proposal on the table on how we might finance (the battle to tame) climate change," he added, warning that the sums proposed "will only get higher if we delay."

Rich, industrialised nations will be expected to make the biggest pledges in Copenhagen, but the role of their poorer counterparts is seen as a key, and as yet unfinanced, part of the climate change fight.

In total, the EU estimated that developing countries will need to find around 100 billion euros (145 billion dollars) per year to tackle climate change by 2020.

Brussels reckons that up to half that amount would have to be found through international public financing to help developing countries cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impact of climate change.

The plan put the EU's yearly contribution at up to 15 billion euros.

Notably the commission stressed that the rest of the aid should come from "industrialised nations and economically more advanced developing countries," a phrase which brings China into the funding equation.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said the "balanced" proposals were needed to "break the impasse in the Copenhagen negotiations."

The December 7-18 talks in Copenhagen, under the 192-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aim to craft a post-2012 pact for curbing the heat-trapping gases that drive perilous global warming.

Brussels sees itself at the forefront of that battle against climate change. The 27 EU nations have already agreed to cut greenhouse gases emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

They have also said they will increase that figure to 30 percent if there is international agreement to do the same.

Breaking down the 100-billion-euro figure, the commission foresees that domestic and private financing in the developing countries themselves should provide 20-40 percent of the total.

Another 40 percent should be found via an international carbon market, which should create an increasingly financial flow to developing countries.

The EU would be expected to find anything in a range from two to 15 billion euros, according to the commission.

A diplomatic source said the EU wants to see the equivalent of 12 billion euros per year coming from the United States.

Each country's contribution would be assessed according to a scale of emissions levels and ability to pay.

The commission proposed exempting the poorest Least Developed Countries from any commitment to put forward low-carbon emissions plans.

It also suggested the creation of a Forum on International Climate Finance to monitor and review "gaps and imbalances" in the financing and results of the policy.

Also on Thursday the foreign minister of Denmark, hosts of December's talks, was holding a meeting with his British, Finnish, French and Swedish counterparts seeking to accelerate negotiations ahead of the Copenhagen talks.

Meanwhile French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday announced plans to impose a new carbon tax next year on oil, gas and coal as part of a drive to combat global warming.

EU Communication Stepping up international 
climate finance - briefing