BRUSSELS, (Reuters) – Negotiations to tackle climate change have become deadlocked between rich and poor countries, but the European Union could offer about a quarter of the money needed to break the stalemate, an EU paper says.
“International negotiations currently appear to have reached an impasse,” said a draft European Commission report on its contribution to global climate talks in Copenhagen in December. “One way to make progress might be to take an explicit step-by-step approach to scaling-up finance,” the report, obtained by Reuters, added.
Developing nations need 66-80 billion euros ($94.2 billion to $114.2 billion) by 2020 to cut emissions from industry and power stations, to tackle deforestation and to adapt to the impact of global warming, it added.
Some environmental campaigners say the figure is more like $140 billion.
Shipping and aviation fuels could be taxed to provide some of the money needed, followed by about 38 billion euros from industry paying for pollution permits in global carbon markets.
“The EU’s ‘fair share’ of international financial flows … would be unlikely to exceed 30 percent, and could be in a range of 20 percent to 30 percent,” the report added.