Finance ministers from the world's richest nations have called for an 'urgent and significant' increase in climate finance ahead of a key meeting of the leaders of the United States and the largest emerging economies.

 

The G20's finance ministers pledged on 7 November to carry out further work on climate change finance, to define financing options and institutional arrangements. However they did not set out specific numbers.

 

In a communique after a two-day meeting chaired by Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling in St Andrews, Scotland, ministers recognised the need to 'increase significantly and urgently the scale and predictability of finance to implement an ambitious international agreement.'

 

They said that to deliver this financing, coordinated equitable, transparent and effective institutional arrangements would be needed. Coordination of support for country-led plans and reporting of this support should be ensured across multilateral, regional and bilateral financing channels, they said.

 

The meeting came a week after the European Union agreed that the price tag for tackling global warming would amount to €100bn (£89bn) a year by 2020, up to half of which would must come from governments of developed countries.

 

Climate finance is seen as one of the central ambitions for a global deal on tackling climate that must be agreed at the United Nations conference in Copenhagen next month.

 

The others are: targets for emissions reductions by developed countries; action from developing countries which translate into reduced quantities of emissions; and a system of governance to oversee the new arrangements.

 

Some commentators were disappointed that the G20 did not come up with an agreed figure of their contribution to climate finance. The Sydney Morning Herald said the G20 'talked big but delivered little on climate finance'. Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, said the failure to reach agreement on funding was a 'major disappointment'.

 

The G20 was dominated by the intervention by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who raised the idea of a financial transaction tax as one way to achieve a fairer balance of risk between banks and taxpayers. The levy, popularly known as Tobin Tax, would raise £100bn a year if set at a rate of 0.05%, according to one estimate.

 

Although the Financial Times said the proposal has been criticised by the United States, Canada and the International Monetary Fund, it received support in The Guardian. Larry Elliott, its economics editor, said the money could be used to provide the resources for climate finance.

 

The issue of climate finance moves to Singapore this week where Copenhagen will be high on the agenda of the summit of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, a grouping of 21 countries that includes the US and the largest emerging economies in the southern hemisphere.

 

Its official website says that to contribute to the success of the Copenhagen Conference, its summit discussion will 'explore ways to reduce barriers to trade and investment in environmental goods and services'.

 

Related links

G20, HM Treasury