Rich countries need US$70 billion more to reach the US$100 billion goal of the U.N. Green Climate Fund set up at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference.
A global agreement on funding poor nations will be essential before reaching any climate change deal at the upcoming U.N. Climate Conference which kicks off Nov. 30 in Paris, French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday.
“Without any financial commitment, there won’t be an agreement in Paris,” said Hollande at the Sixth Petersberg Climate Dialogue hosted in the German capital of Berlin.
“Developing countries won’t accept an agreement if they do not get any financial support for adaptation and (energy) transition – and I am thinking in particular of African countries.”
Governments of the world had agreed at the 2009 U.N. talks in Copenhagen that the richest countries would fund the poorest with US$100 billion per year by 2020 from public and private sources.
The funds would help them both to cope with the effects of climate change and to transform their economies into a more sustainable model.
However, the richest countries could only mobilize US$30 billion so far; German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a roadmap for how the world will raise the additional $70 billion, adding that her country will provide its share.