No concrete pledges from EU on adaptation

BRUSSELS, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- EU leaders at a summit in Brussels Friday pledged to contribute their "fair share" into a multibillion-dollar fund to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

"We have a clear, ambitious, unified European message on climate finance," said Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission. He added developed countries need to put "their money where their mouth is," but EU leaders did not announce how much the 27-member bloc would actually contribute to the fund. EU leaders agreed at the summit that public financing by 2020 should account for half of the fund, some $74 billion, with the other half paid by the private sector. Brussels added it would contribute a "fair share" of that. The EU has urged its members to make short-term contributions to the fund as early as 2010, but said those initial payments of up to $10 billion would be voluntary.

The decision comes after nine poorer EU nations refused to commit concrete sums because of their battled economies.

But EU leaders also promised new deeper emissions cuts of between 80 percent and 95 percent by 2050 if an ambitious deal is reached at the climate change summit next month in Copenhagen, Denmark.

"Europe is showing that we are taking the lead" on the road to Copenhagen, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.

The U.N.-mandated climate conference is seen as a watershed point for climate protection.

The accord to be born at Copenhagen -- to feature binding emissions-reductions targets, adaptation measures and their funding -- is due to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012.

Key to the future accord are the world's two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States.

Barroso said he and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt would travel to Washington next Tuesday to deliver U.S. President Barack Obama a clear message: "We are ready," he said. "Let's engage; let's make Copenhagen a success."

But environmental groups blasted the EU's pledges, saying they were insufficient for convincing developing countries to reduce emissions while their economies are growing.

Oxfam and Friends of the Earth said Europe and the United States should pay at least $52 billion into the fund each year.

Europe's Green Parties called the deal "a calamitous result for the climate" because the EU failed to agree on a fixed sum.

"The EU preferred to give into dissension, opacity and internal tactics during the negotiations between the member states," leaders from the Greens said in a statement.