The landmark agreement by EU leaders on the amount of money rich countries must give vulnerable nations to help them adapt to climate finance will give added momentum towards an overall deal as negotiators from over 190 countries gather in Barcelona for five days of formal negotiations.
European leaders agreed for the first time on 30 October that the price tag for tackling global warming would amount to €100bn (£89bn) a year by 2020, up to half of which would need to come from governments of developed countries.

 

The agreement at the meeting of the European Council achieves the aims that Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a keynote speech in June, when said it was vital that countries engaged in 'active negotiation on … real contributions'.

 

The EU deal goes even further than the working figure of $100bn a year (£63bn; €68bn) that the Prime Minister suggested in June. Elements of the agreed position include:

 

• Climate financing of €100bn a year by 2020 to come from governments, carbon markets and international public finance;
• Between €22-50bn of the €100bn would come from global public finance; and
• A 'fast-track' scheme of €5-7bn a year for the three years 2010-2012.

 

Speaking after the council meeting, he said that Europe had come up with bold proposals.

 

'The figures that we called for a few months ago have now been accepted and I believe that we are now on our way to showing that Europe and the world of rich countries can pay their fair share towards tackling the problems of climate change.'

 

'We were aware that if the European Union did not come together to solve some of the impasses, the possibility of a deal at the Copenhagen summit would be a lot less likely.'

 

In their communique, EU leaders said details of the final burden sharing would be narrowed down at Copenhagen but suggested a 'comprehensive global distribution key based on emission levels and on GDP to reflect both responsibility for global emissions and ability to pay'.

 

Climate finance is one of five key elements identified by Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for a deal at the global negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

 

The others are: rich country targets to cut emissions; development country agreements to limit emissions; access to technology for poor countries; and consensus on the regulation of emissions from aviation, shipping, forests, land use and other areas.

 

But, as The Independent says in an analysis piece, money is 'key' to an agreement, praising Europe for becoming the first rich-country bloc to come up with financial proposals.

 

'The key point about these figures is that they are a start; they allow officials from the 192 countries involved in the treaty, including Britain, at last to start talking about money from today, when the final week of pre-Copenhagen negotiations begins in Barcelona,' it said.

 

Oxfam, the charity and campaigning organization, said the amount coming from governments should be much higher but recognised that the deal was significant coming on the eve of the Barcelona talks.

 

'Coming forward with numbers is a positive step,' said Robert Bailey, its Senior Policy Advisor on climate change. 'Gordon Brown has been pushing hard on this throughout the negotiations and his leadership must be commended.'

 

In its main leader, The Observer said that the EU deal on climate finance would have been 'improbable'. 'Today, it is a reality. The world may not get a good global warming deal from the Copenhagen summit, but enough has been gained in its preparations to suggest that a binding agreement will eventually be signed,' it said.

 

In the first of two leader columns this week, the Financial Times urges negotiators in Barcelona to follow the science on climate change which it says is 'complex but compelling'.

 

'A good reason why the world should invest hundreds of billions of dollars in cutting carbon emissions is to insure against truly cataclysmic climate change that might destroy industrial civilization,' it concludes.

 

The Barcelona meeting is the final chance for negotiators to hammer out a text before December's Copenhagen summit.