Europe puts figure on green aid to push climate change deal

David Adam in the Guardian (UK): Europe is to breathe life into the faltering search for a new global deal on climate change by pledging billions of pounds in financial support for poor countries, the Guardian can reveal. European heads of state will formally recommend this week that rich countries should hand over around €100bn (£90bn) a year to nations such as India and Vietnam by 2020 to help them cope with the impact of global warming. The pledge is expected to come at the end of a two-day summit of European leaders on Thursday and Friday, and before negotiations on a new climate treaty in Copenhagen in December.

The move marks a victory in Brussels for the UK and Gordon Brown, who appears to have won arguments with member states including Germany over whether Europe should commit to climate funding ahead of the Copenhagen talks.

…A draft copy of the European summit's conclusions obtained by the Guardian spells out that a "deal on financing will be a central part of an agreement in Copenhagen" and that Europe is ready to "take on its resulting fair share of total international public finance".

The document says: "It is estimated that the total net incremental costs of mitigation and adaptation in developing countries could amount to around €100bn annually by 2020, to be met through a combination of their own efforts, the international carbon market and international public finance."

It adds: "The overall level of the international public support required is estimated to lie in the range of €22bn to €50bn per year by 2020 … this range could be narrowed down in view of the Copenhagen summit." The document does not specify how much money Europe is willing to provide, though previous estimates have put their likely contribution at about €10bn-€15bn each year. That could land European taxpayers with a bill of about €5bn-€7.5bn each year....

At the climate camp in the city with the Lloyd's building in the background on April 1, 2009, shot by PeterEastern, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License