Barroso at the meeting

To fight the global warming, European Union(EU) has agreed that some amount will be given to the developing nations in a conditional deal. The EU has agreed to the deal for the coming December UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

It agreed on Friday that it would pay between $32 and $74 billion to the developing nations and that the poorer nations would need to have around $148 billion just to fight global warming.

The meeting was held in Brussels and no specific amount was announced by the EU nations for the countries they were going to contribute.

European Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso said that Eu had now an “important breakthrough” by agreeing to the deal. He said that “It was essential that the European Union kept its leadership role and we have done that”, but “offers are not a blank cheque … we are ready to act if our partners are ready to deliver”.

The union has also promised that they would cut down 30 per cent emissions below 1990 levels by 2020, and they also want the other developed nations to make a similar commitment at Copenhagen.

Prime minister of Sweden, Fredrik Reinfeldt said that the Europeans “now have a very strong negotiating position”. He said that EU nations would not even contribute before 2013 for the poorer countries demands.

International head of climate at Friends of the Earth, Asad Rehman said the Eu deal was far away to tackle the issue. He said to Al-Jazeera that “I think the European leaders missed a historic opportunity to really give momentum to the climate talks. Their response today was totally inadequate – it lacked ambition and the figures were too low, What it [the EU] is saying is that of the $100bn that it believes are needed globally, only $2-15bn will be provided by the European Union.

“In fact, 80 per cent of the money that they’re talking about is going to be delivered by developing countries themselves – those least responsible for the emissions in the atmosphere – or from discredited mechanisms like carbon off-setting and carbon markets”.

Tim friend of Al-Jazeera said that “Although they’re talking about notional figures of what they’d like to achieve … they have to work out where the money actually comes from,” he said.

“But I think they wanted to come out with a clear message that they could take to Copenhagen, because they want to encourage Washington, they want to encourage Beijing, to now come and deal their hand”.

Poland’s minister for Europe Mikolaj Dowgielewicz considered this move a ‘success’. He said “We want to develop quickly. We don’t want to become the museum of folklore of
eastern Europe”.

The EU presidency is now held in Sweden. The revised proposal was called in because of pressure from the poorer countries and the richer members over how to share the burden.

Funding is main issue for the success in Copenhagen because developing countries are saying that they will not sign up to tackle climate change without enough funds from rich nations.