European Union finance ministers on Tuesday urged more rich countries to offer poor states immediate aid to fight global warming, as the EU, US and Japan have already done. The three powers promised in Copenhagen in December to pay up to 30 billion dollars over the next three years to help poor states gear up to adapt to global warming, but the money has not yet started to flow, raising questions over the credibility of their promises.
Tuesday's EU meeting "reaffirmed the EU and its member states' commitment to contribute 2.4 billion euros (3.3 billion dollars) annually over the period 2010-2012 and calls on other parties to announce their fast-start contributions," a joint statement said. The fast-start funding is meant to help poor countries prepare to fight climate change and gear up their administrations to handle the much larger sums of funding Western states have pledged further in the future.
Rich states in Copenhagen put that future funding need at 100 billion dollars a year by 2020.The EU statement included a pledge to provide an annual report on how the EU is coming up with the money and where it is being spent, with the first report due to be delivered in world climate talks in Mexico in November.
The EU sees the offer of funding as one of its main bargaining chips in United Nations talks on fighting climate change. But the bloc was largely sidelined in the Copenhagen talks, where the key agreements were drawn up between the United States, China, Brazil, India and South Africa. EU officials say it is therefore crucial to live up to the funding pledge, in an attempt to restore EU influence in climate talks.
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