The Global Energy

EU leaders on Friday agreed that developing nations will need 100 billion euros per year by 2020 to tackle climate change, but failed to put a figure to Europe’s own contribution amid sharp east-west differences.

“We have an agreement,” said Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, at the end of a two-day European summit in Brussels. “The EU now has a strong negotiating position and the countdown to Copenhagen now has started,” he added, referring to international climate talks in Denmark in December.

The leaders called for developed countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95 percent by 2050, but went into very little detail on how this could be done. “The EU is ready to take its fair share of the global effort,” they said in a statement.

France, Germany and Italy had been keen not to show Europe’s hand ahead of the Copenhagen talks. “We are going to link our promises to what other countries offer and similarly our financial engagements,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose country had hoped for more flesh on the bones of the agreement, agreed the deal shows that “the European Union and its member states are ready to contribute their fair share of the cost. “Of course it is conditional on other countries playing a part too,” he added.

Even the 100 billion euro (150 billion dollar) per year figure which developing nations will need by 2020 will be found through an unspecified combination of developing countries’ “own efforts, the international carbon market and international public finance”.

The 27-nation bloc prides itself on leading the fight against climate change, and has already agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

It needs a strong, unified line to take to Copenhagen if it is to persuade the likes of China, the United States and India to make swingeing cuts themselves.

The EU also said it is willing to increase its own promised emissions cuts to 30 percent if the rest of the developed world does likewise at Copenhagen.