OSLO, (Reuters) – Aid of $10 billion from rich nations would be a “good beginning” to launch a U.N. climate treaty due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December, the United Nations’ top climate official said yesterday.
Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, also told the BBC World Service in an interview that rich countries needed to pledge deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and the poor had to slow the rise in their emissions.
But cash was needed to kick-start a deal.
“If we can get in Copenhagen something like 10 billion euros or dollars on the table that will allow developing countries to begin preparing national plans to limit their emissions and adapt to climate change, then that would be a good beginning,” he said.
“But even more importantly, Copenhagen has to agree an architecture, a burden-sharing formula, that will allow us to share out the costs of climate action among countries as the needs increase over time,” he added.
Costs of fighting climate change in the longer term could be up to $200 billion a year, according to U.N. projections.
Developing nations say the rich have to show willingness to give cash to launch a new U.N pact to succeed the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
Many developing nations are likely to be hardest hit by climate change such as more droughts, disease, floods, heat waves and rising sea levels.
De Boer said that rich nations were finding it harder to come up with cash because of the recession. “It’s become more difficult to raise financial resources,” he said.
He also said developed countries should be guided in planning emissions cuts by what he has often called a “good beacon” of reductions of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
