EU finance Ministers met on 9 June ahead of the European Council which takes place later this week, to discuss the topic of climate funding for developing countries. Ministers determined that in order to help poor economies cut their emissions, it will be necessary for industrialised countries to contribute around €110 billion a year until 2020 and even discussed how different financial contributions should be determined.

According to their findings, contributions from developed nations should be based on how much a country is capable of donating as well on how much CO2 it emits. In a resolution adopted during the Council of finance Ministers, it was decided that money should come from ‘usual or new resources’, with the paper specifically mentioning the airline and maritime industries as potential sources of income. The resolution will now be used during the European Council summit when they convene this week.

The resolution also noted how the biggest issue to be addressed in this particular area of climate change prevention, was ‘effectively governing and channelling the money towards climate activities and action’.

In other words the big challenge is not simply determining how much money needs to be donated, but how this money is best used thereafter. With this in mind, the resolution stated that ‘the allocation of support should move towards a performance-based system, strongly incentivising the promotion of actions which maximise climate value for climate money’.

Whilst the outcome of this meeting can be seen as positive, particularly given EU leaders’ failure to put forward any concrete proposals on funding in developing countries so far, it is not yet clear if the findings will have any concrete impact on the European Council summit. Diplomatic sources suggest that a decision will be postponed once again, with the EU preferring to concentrate on sending out general messages about what sort of commitments they would be prepared to make in Copenhagen.