African Union to call for $67bn a year in climate funding

African leaders gathering in Libya this week are to discuss plans to establish a common negotiating position ahead of the UN's Copenhagen climate change talks, which would see them call on industrialised nations to deliver $67bn (£41bn) a year to support climate adaptation measures.

According to a draft proposal seen by the Bloomberg news agency, the African Union will demand that industrialised nations cut carbon emissions 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, and pay 0.5 per cent of their GDP to help developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change and roll out low-carbon technologies.

The demands echo those made earlier this year by China, India and South Africa, as well as a number of specific nations, each of which have also demanded that rich countries agree to deliver a 40 per cent cut in emissions by 2020.

"Although Africa is least responsible for global warming, it suffers most from a problem that it didn’t create," Jean Ping, chairman of the 52-member African Union Commission, said in a speech in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa last week. "Africa will henceforth be represented by one delegation at international meetings on climate change."

He added that the billions of dollars in compensation demanded by the union could be delivered through an expansion of the global carbon-trading mechanism designed to allow poor nations to sell more carbon credits to rich nations.

Climate scientists predict that Africa will face some of the severest global warming impacts, with various models suggesting that droughts will worsen, diseases will become more prevalent, and desertification will spread across large areas of the continent.

Earlier this year, UK prime minister Gordon Brown said that industrialised nations should agree provide $100bn in climate change funding to developing countries as part of any Copenhagen deal. The scale of climate adaptation and technology transfer funds is expected to be one of the main sticking points at the forthcoming Copenhagen talks.