EU nations are dithering over how to fill a multi-billion-euro fund to help tackle climate change, just as the region’s executive body hosts talks with countries likely to bear the brunt of extreme weather.
The EU recommitted to providing €7.2bn ($9.4bn) for the fund over 2010-12, according to draft conclusions seen by Reuters ahead of a meeting of EU finance ministers next week.
But after that, how much cash will flow is unclear as the text – drafted against the backdrop of acute economic crisis in the eurozone – only states the need to “scale up climate finance from 2013 to 2020″ without specifying how.
The Green Climate Fund aims to channel up to $100bn globally per year by 2020 to help developing countries deal with the impact of climate change.
Its design was agreed at international climate talks in Durban last year.
Europe’s climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard is fighting to build on Durban’s fragile agreement to keep alive the United Nations process on tackling climate change.
On Monday and Tuesday, she will hold informal discussions in Brussels with members of what some call the “coalition of ambition”, ahead of UN talks in Bonn later this month.
The coalition is a union of the EU, the Alliance of Small Island States and the Least Developed Countries, which at the UN talks in Durban played a lead role in forging agreement on keeping alive the Kyoto process to address global warming.
“I have invited to Brussels today and tomorrow a group of 30 ambitious countries, represented by their ministers, to discuss how we can keep up this momentum and continue to achieve results together,” Hedegaard said in a statement.
They have to beef up this fund in order to pay for politicians from developing countries and tens of thousands of member of NGOs to attend the big party in Rio at the end of June this year. $9 billion seems about the amount of money required.