Europe must pay €15bn in climate aid, says top environment official

Rich countries should pay €100bn a year by 2020 to cover the cost of climate change in developing countries, and the EU should contribute up to €15bn, says Stavros Dimas
Ian Traynor in Brussels
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 10 September 2009 18.08 BST
Rich countries should be paying around €100bn (£88bn) a year by 2020 to cover the cost of climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries, according to the EU's environment commissioner.
The announcement is the first time that Brussels has identified the cost of tackling global warming in poor countries, an issue that is central to achieving a global deal at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December. Europe's top climate official, Stavros Dimas, said that the EU should contribute between €2bn and €15bn of the total. It is likely to be seen by many observers as an opening bargaining position.
"A deal on financing will be central to achieving agreement at Copenhagen," said the commission proposal. "UN negotiations are dangerously close to deadlock."
Dimas added: "This cannot, of course, be a blank cheque. But if there is no money from the developed countries, there will be no deal in Copenhagen."
Today's announcement is the first detailed set of proposals from any side before Copenhagen, although Dimas' figures are similar to the $100bn price tag proposed by Gordon Brown in a speech two months ago.
"With less than 90 days to go the clock is ticking," said the UK's Department for Energy and Climate Change. "We welcome the commission's constructive contribution on how the world puts in place the finance that's needed to tackle climate change. We stand firm to the commitment to contribute our fair share."
The announcement was greeted with ridicule by some NGOs and campaign groups. Greenpeace, Oxfam and WWF said the EU should be contributing around €35bn. The World Wildlife Fund called the EU's calculations "financial jiujitsu".
"The methodology is flawed and the amounts are totally insufficient ... It is hoped that the optimistic assumptions in Europe's favour are not seen by others as unwillingness to live up to its obligations," said a spokesperson for the charity.
Dimas's proposed total annual figure is made up of three parts. If Copenhagen achieves an agreement for a 30% cut in greenhouse gases by 2020 in the developed world and slowing rate of emissions growth by up to 30% in the developing world, the commission proposed that international public funding of €22-50bn should be provided to the poor countries annually by 2020.
Additionally, it concluded that the international carbon market could supply a further €38bn a year, and predicted that private and public finance in the developing countries themselves would generate up to €40bn.
But diplomats, analysts and campaigners said the proposals were deliberately vague and riddled with problems, potential conflicts and inconsistencies. It is not clear, for example, how much of the EU fund could be diverted from existing aid money to the developing world, reducing the volume of genuinely new funds.
Elise Ford, the head of Oxfam International's EU office said it would be "scandalous" to divert money from existing aid budgets. "This would rob tomorrow's hospitals and schools in developing countries to pay for them to tackle climate change today. This will undermine progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals," she said. "Funds to help developing countries to tackle climate change must be additional to aid – not instead of it."
The commission blueprint enshrines "the principle of additionality" for climate change funds without quantifying what proportion would be "additional" to existing development aid. Also, the EU admitted that the "size of the carbon market cannot be predicted with certainty".
The British government said that no more than 10% of aid budgets could be used for the climate change fund.