EU fails to agree climate funds; India seeks aid

LUXEMBOURG, (Reuters) – Talks on a new U.N. climate  deal stumbled yesterday when European Union finance ministers  failed to agree funds for poor countries and India reiterated  demands for aid to help curb its emissions. 

An impasse among finance ministers from the 27-nation EU  means the issue of EU aid to developing countries — a sticking  point in talks on a U.N. pact to fight global warming due in  December — will be passed on to an EU summit on Oct. 29 and 30.

“It is a disappointing outcome,” Swedish Finance Minister  Anders Borg, whose country holds the 27-country bloc’s  presidency until the end of the year, told reporters after talks  failed in Luxembourg.  

Nine of Europe’s poorer countries, led by Poland, demanded  their own economic circumstances be taken into account before  the EU agrees up to 15 billion euros ($22.5 billion) in  financial aid for developing nations.  

Developing countries say they cannot cut emissions and adapt  to changing temperatures without help from industrialised  nations, which grew rich by powering their industries with  hydrocarbons and polluting the atmosphere. 

Earlier, India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh rejected  an Indian newspaper report that he was willing to drop a  long-standing demand for foreign aid and technology as the price  for accepting international curbs on India’s rising emissions.  

Dropping such a link would have been a big concession for  the Dec. 7-18 U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen. India is  the fourth biggest emitter behind China, the United States and  Russia.  

Ramesh said in a statement India would agree to  international monitoring of emissions “only when such actions  are enabled and supported by international finance and  technology”.  

The 190-nation U.N. talks are bogged down over how to share  out greenhouse gas curbs between rich and poor nations as part  of an assault meant to avert ever more heat waves, rising sea  levels, floods and more powerful storms.

In Washington, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the United  States should focus on reducing its own emissions before  outlining how it might place carbon tariffs on energy-intensive  goods from developing countries such as China and India.  

“We don’t need to go there at this moment,” Chu told the  Reuters Washington Summit. Carbon tariffs were featured in the  climate bill the House of Representatives narrowly passed in  June but are bitterly opposed by developing countries. In the debate on aid, the EU’s executive, the European  Commission, suggested last month the bloc provide up to 15  billion euros ($22.46 billion) a year by 2020 to break the  impasse.