UN climate chief Yvo de Boer, on the eve of the world talks on global warming, called here on Sunday for fast-track aid of 30 billion dollars to help poorer countries ease carbon emissions and shore up defences against climate change.
De Boer, executive secretary of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), reiterated his support for this figure, which the European Union (EU) has also endorsed. Disbursement of the funds over the next three years could help seal a historic deal in Copenhagen, said de Boer.
"In short-term financing, I think we need 10 billion for 2010 and 10 billion for 2011 and 10 billion for 2012. That's in prompt-start financing," de Boer told a press conference. "Clearly, though, over time, by 2020 or 2030, we are going to need more significant sums, in the hundreds of billions of dollars, to deal with both [emissions] mitigation and [climate] adaption.
"But the first priority for me at the moment is prompt-start financing to deal with urgent needs." Funding is one of the thorniest issues at the 12-day UNFCCC talks, opening here on Monday, which aim to forge a post-2012 pact on climate change.
Another big issue is securing a deal on reducing greenhouse gases that trap solar heat and are driving dangerous changes to Earth's climate system. Two years of negotiation have failed to yield much progress, and the best outcome expected at Copenhagen is an outline agreement, endorsed by more than 100 heads of state or government.
Key details in the accord would be fleshed out in further negotiations in 2010. De Boer said it was essential that money pledged for climate help be freshly sourced, rather than drawn from existing aid budgets. Poorer countries want industrialised nations to pledge around one percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) per year, or around 400 billion dollars (270 billion euros), in finance. The EU estimates their needs at 100 billion euros (150 billion dollars) annually by 2020.