G20 makes little progress on climate financing

By Toni Vorobyova and Anna Willard

ST ANDREWS, Scotland (Reuters) - Rich countries and developing nations fought over climate change on Saturday, failing to make progress on financing ahead of a major environmental summit in Copenhagen next month.

Britain, which was hosting a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Scotland, was determined to push toward a $100 billion deal to cover the costs of climate change by 2020.

But talks got bogged down in a row with large developing countries about who should foot the bill.

"There was a heated argument," Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said.

"I think we should be very careful in approaching the possibility of piling big new commitments onto developing countries as this can put a brake on the pursuing of other crucial tasks such as the eradication of poverty."

The climate change discussion had dragged on for hours and a French official said the debate was so intense there was a risk the final statement would not mention climate change at all.

In the end, they agreed on the need "to increase significantly and urgently the scale and predictability of finance to implement an ambitious international agreement."

European Union leaders agreed in October that developing countries would need 100 billion euros a year by 2020 to battle climate change.

About 22-50 billion euros of the total will come from the public purse in rich countries worldwide and the EU is expected to provide between 20 and 30 percent of that.

"It's a bit disappointing because we would have liked to have done a little bit more work," said French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde, adding that Europe's offer was "substantial."

STUMBLING BLOCK

China is often denounced by Western critics as the main obstacle to agreement, because it argues developing countries should not submit to binding international caps on emissions while they grow out of poverty.

In turn, China and other emerging powers have said the rich countries have done far too little in vowing to cut their own greenhouse gas output, and in offering technology and money to the Third World to help cope with global warming.

"We have not come as far as we had hoped even this morning," said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

"We have not reached an agreement. There is still some work to do. I hope everybody knows that Copenhagen must not be a failure."