EU nations to commit $3 billion to climate fund

(December 12, 2009) European Union nations will commit more than $3 billion a year to help poorer countries combat global warming, the leaders of Britain and France said Friday as they sought to bolster climate talks in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. British prime minister, Gordon Brown and French president, Nicolas Sarkozy said their two countries would contribute most of that sum and were trying to get smaller members of the 27-state European Union to pitch in more at an EU summit in Brussels that ended on Friday. EU leaders failed on Thursday to come up with a firm figure for the fund, an embarrassing setback for a bloc that was long at the forefront of the fight against global warming. Smaller eastern EU states are reluctant to donate as they struggle with government debt and rising unemployment in the wake of the financial crisis. The climate money is meant to go toward a global $10 billion annual fund for short-term help to poor countries, particularly in Africa, adapt to the effects of global warming before a new climate treaty being negotiated in Copenhagen comes into force in 2012. The money would help poorer countries build coastal protection, modify or shift crops threatened by drought, build water supplies and irrigation systems, preserve forests, improve health care to deal with diseases spread by warming, and move from fossil fuel to low-carbon energy systems, such as solar and wind power.