EU leaders name climate change price
Updated on 30 October 2009
In the run-up to the Copenhagen summit Gordon Brown declares a "breakthrough" in climate change talks as EU leaders name a â¬100bn price for tackling carbon emissions.
Subject to formal endorsement in summit conclusions being prepared in Brussels, Europe has agreed to make a conditional offer to the rest of the world at global environment negotiations in Copenhagen in December.
The move is a victory for the prime minister, who yesterday warned the summit that failure to include figures would risk the breakdown of the UN talks.
Science Correspondent Julian Rush said:
"There are three things which Gordon Brown and the Danish prime minster are trying to achieve.
"The first is that €100bn a year by 2020 is the amount of money that the European Union will put on the table at the Copenhagen negotiations. That is to go from developing countries, if you like, from rich countries to poor countries, to help them adapt to climate change to mitigate the effects of climate change and adopt new carbon technologies.
"Secondly they want to get through that between €22bn and €50bn a year of that comes from government money - from public sector funds and not from private sector or from carbon markets.
"And thirdly they are trying to push through the idea of getting some money on the table very quickly - some €5bn to €7bn a year starting next year once a Copenhagen deal is agreed at the end of this year. That's their hope.
"The conditions on this are that first of all other countries, partially rich countries like America, stump up cash as well and secondly that developing countries do actually agree to have some sort of control, some sort of constraint on their carbon emissions with negotiate in Copenhagen.
"This morning the Prime Minister Gordon Brown is reasonably confident that he can achieve that.
"The opponents really are mainly the eastern European countries led by the Polls. Quite simply they argue, "We are poor countries too we can't afford to pay the sorts of money you're talking about."
"But the British this morning were reasonably confident that they think they can overcome those Polish objections.
"Why does it matter? Well it matters because Europe puts itself in the place of being the moral leader on climate change - it's going in to negotiations in Copenhagen on climate change saying, "We are the part of the world that is really, really doing something about climate change."
"And since the negotiations are about as much about money as they are about getting emission reductions down if the Europeans can't agree about money well then it's whole moral position is completely undermined."
