UK and France increase climate funding offer to £1.5bn

Britain and France have today said they will increase their contribution to the proposed "fast-track" climate fund in a move that will take the amount of funding offered by the EU to €2bn (£1.8bn) a year over the next three years.

In a move mirrored by France, Gordon Brown said today that the UK would increase the amount it will pay into the three-year fund from £800m to £1.5bn.

"Our contribution will be at least £1.5bn over the three years and we also believe that Europe will be able to show today it will pay its share of the $10bn fund," Brown said at a joint news conference with French president Nicolas Sarkozy at an EU leaders' summit in Brussels.

The pledge significantly increases the amount the EU will pay into the fund, which is expected to run from 2010 to 2012 and intends to help developing nations invest in climate adaptation measures and clean technologies. It will also step up pressure on other EU nations to increase their contribution to the fund.

Early reports had suggested that the EU leaders had agreed to pay just €1.8bn a year into the fund, meaning the bloc would fall short of the €2.2bn recommended by the European Commission. But EU sources told Reuters today that the move from France and the UK meant the bloc was now likely to offer in the region of €2.1bn a year.

The pledge came as the UN's top climate change official, Yvo de Boer, said that "good progress" was being made towards an agreement that would accelerate the transfer of clean technologies to poorer countries.

However, he also warned that rich nations needed to increase their 2020 emission reduction commitments to fall into line with the 25 to 40 per cent cuts recommended by scientists and demanded by developing countries.

His comments came as the lead negotiator for the G77 group of developing co untries, Sudanese diplomat Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aiping, reportedly stormed out of a meeting with UN officials.

"Things are not going well," a tight-lipped Di-Aiping told the Danish TV2 News, adding that "this conference will probably be wrecked by the bad intentions of some people".

The G77 plus China group is under pressure from rich nations to compromise its demands for deeper emission cuts, and reject calls from many vulnerable nations for the Copenhagen Agreement to set a target for atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at 350ppm, 100ppm lower than the 450ppm goal favoured by industrialised countries.

The group of vulnerable nations, led by the tiny island state of Tuvalu, says the lower target is required to try to ensure average temperatures do not rise by more than 1.5 degrees. They argue that the two-degree target proposed by richer nations would lead to crippling droughts and dangerous sea level rises in their countries.

De Boer told Reuters that the 1.5 degree target would be "very difficult" to achieve, although he counselled that it was too early to cast judgment on the success of the talks.