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EU to push for deal on climate financing at G20 summit

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-18 06:31

BRUSSELS: European Union (EU) leaders agreed on Thursday to push for a deal at the upcoming Group of 20 (G20) summit on financing the fight against climate change in the developing world.

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"The developing world needs our help to pay the bill, a bill that we helped to create through our emissions. We have today therefore started to look at the course," Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the EU rotating presidency, told a press conference after an informal summit with his EU colleagues.

The informal gathering was intended to hammer out a common EU position at the G20 summit in the US city of Pittsburgh next week, with the global talks on a climate deal high on the agenda.

World governments are scheduled to conclude a deal in Copenhagen, Denmark in December to create a new framework for further international action on climate change, following on from the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period which ends in 2012.

Reinfeldt warned that with only 80 days left before the Copenhagen meeting, the negotiations have gone too slow. One of the sticky issues is how much developed countries can pay to help poor nations combat global warming.

EU leaders agreed to an estimate by the European Commission that the total net incremental cost of mitigation and adaptation in developing countries could amount to about 100 billion euros ($146 billion) annually by 2020.

The Commission proposed last week that the EU could contribute some 2 to 15 billion euros ($2.9 to $22 billion) a year by 2020 to help poor nations, but the amount was criticized by environmental groups as being too small.

"To make progress, we need to talk figures. That is why we have put on the table the proposal. Our message to the developing world is that if they are serious about the challenge of cutting emissions, we will be there to help," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

EU leaders did not say whether they had accepted the EU's contribution in total as proposed by the Commission, but pressed other countries, including emerging economies, also to pay.

"All countries, except the least developed, should contribute to financing the fight against climate change in developing countries with finance allocated according to need so that developing countries receive more than they are contributing," they said in a conclusion document.