Brown proposes new climate change fund

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced plans for a fund to be set up by rich countries to provide climate-change incentives for poor ones.

The Launch Fund plan could end what appears to be a deadlock facing the climate change summit next month in Copenhagen, Denmark, Brown said.

Brown announced the plan Friday at a meeting of Commonwealth of Nations leaders in Trinidad and Tobago, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday. He said French President Nicolas Sarkozy has also agreed to back the proposal in Copenhagen.

The plan includes satellite monitoring of countries like Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, where deforestation is a major issue.

Brown said Britain would contribute 800 million pounds ($1.3 billion) with a total goal of 10 billion pounds ($16.5 billion). It would be used in the years 2010 through 2012 to reward countries for results on issues like deforestation and emissions cuts.

"'Together the collective power of the commonwealth must be brought together to tackle a new historic injustice, that of climate change," Brown said.

The 53 nations in the commonwealth, mostly former British colonies, include countries like the Maldives where global warming could put them under water in decades.