$30 bil. set to help developing world cut CO2

Dec 8, 2009 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Hiroko Kono The Yomiuri Shimbune.

Developed nations at the U.N. climate change conference are set to agree on providing $10 billion a year for three years from 2010 to developing nations striving to achieve greenhouse gas reductions, sources said.

Various estimates vary on how much is needed to support developing countries, but if realized, the $10 billion would be the first time developed nations have agreed on a specific amount.

The specific contributions from each country to the amount will be hammered out later, the sources said.

Louise Hand, Australia's chief negotiator at the 15th Conference of Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15), said in a speech Monday on behalf of a group of advanced countries including Japan, the United States and Canada, but not the European Union, that "there is an emerging consensus that a core element of the Copenhagen accord should be to mobilize $10 billion a year by 2012 to support adaptation and mitigation in developing countries, particularly the most vulnerable and least developed countries that could be destabilized by the impacts of climate change."

Jonathan Pershing, U.S. deputy special envoy for climate change, made similar remarks at a press conference the same day.

The secretariat of the convention and the World Bank have said a massive amount of money will be needed to support developing nations' efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions.