Rich nations’ climate cash offers still not clear
By David Fogarty
SINGAPORE – Just weeks from a major U.N. climate summit, rich nations have yet to unveil specific amounts to help poor countries fight global warming, Canada’s finance minister said on Friday.
Funding to help poorer nations adapt to rising seas and more chaotic weather is a make-or-break issue for talks to try to seal a broader climate pact in Copenhagen next month.
The U.N. climate chief has called for an initial $10 billion in funding to be offered by rich nations in Copenhagen. EU leaders say developing countries would need 100 billion euros ($148 billion) by 2020.
But Canada’s Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said there were still no specific numbers on the table during high-level discussions at a recent G20 meeting or during a gathering of Asia-Pacific leaders, ministers and CEOs that ends on Sunday.
“At the G20 meeting in Scotland (last week) we talked about financing options but we did not talk about numbers,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Three weeks from the start of the Dec 7-18 meeting in Denmark, that remained the case, he said.
The G20 finance ministers made very little progress during their talks on climate funding in Scotland, with heated arguments over who should foot the bill. [ID:nL7173783]
Developing nations, where per-capita emissions are a fraction of those in the developed world, say rich countries are responsible for most of mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution and so must help them adapt.
CLOUDS OVER COPENHAGEN
The chairman of global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers said he didn’t expect the Copenhagen talks to make major progress.
“I think it will move forward but I’m not looking for any major breakthroughs at this point,” Dennis Nally told Reuters.
The United Nations has set a goal for nations to agree on the outlines of a broader, and tougher, framework in Copenhagen in which all countries share the burden of fighting climate change.
But lack of progress in negotiations and worries over the fragile global economic recovery have dimmed hopes of success.
Nally said he didn’t expect developed nations’ economies to recover for another 18 to 24 months, making it hard for them to make major financial commitments for climate funds.
“I don’t think you’re going to see governments committing big time until they have a better feel for what that economic picture is going to look like.”
“The economic environment that we’re dealing with right now, that creeps into that whole discussion and I think until you get some clarity around this recovery period and what does it look like, that is going to be the cloud that hangs over all that.” (Editing by Neil Chatterjee)
