Brussels, 17/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - €2.2 billion is the sum which the Commission and the Member States have already invested in 2010 to help vulnerable developing countries to adapt to and to fight to climate change. This figure is revealed in the report by the Economic Policy Committee which was approved by the Ecofin Council on Monday 17 November, to shed light on the concretisation of the commitments made by the EU in terms of “fast start funding”.
The EU, which has pledged €7.2 billion to the poorest countries over the period 2010-2012, is therefore on course to keep its promise for this year, and will be in a position to report back on this to the UN climate conference of Cancún (COP 16, Mexico, 29 November -10 December). This is good news in these times of economic troubles and budgetary constraints.
EU finance ministers, who were to put the finishing touches to their contribution to the Cancún conference, on the other hand, failed to adopt unanimous conclusions on funding the global fight against climate change (EUROPE 10257). The formal adoption of the text appeared to be agreed upon, but this was without reckoning on Poland, which was unable to get behind the text. The result is that the conclusions adopted are not those of the Council, but those of the Belgian Presidency, with the support of 26 delegations.
This is due to Poland's fears that the global distribution key for the re-funding efforts required to fight climate change are based solely on the level of CO2 emissions of the countries, to the exclusion of the GDP criterion. Yet, the EU retained GDP as the number two criterion at the European Council of October 2009. Jacek Rostowski, the foreign minister of this heavily coal-dependent country but with a GDP entirely dissimilar to that of Brazil, for example, marked its disagreement with part of the text, which contains a measure of ambiguity over the criteria.
The paragraphs in question referred to the conclusions and recommendations of the consultative group on the funding of the fight against climate change put in place by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. It was too early for Poland to subscribe to the conclusions of the Council of the EU, as the detailed analysis of the conclusions and recommendations of the international consultative group has not yet been carried out by the Commission and the competent groups of the Council. (A.N./transl.fl.)