NEW YORK: Brazil, China, India and South Africa voiced disappointment on Sunday over the failure of rich countries to come up with billions of dollars needed to help them sign on to a landmark climate change deal.

Ministers and top negotiators from the four key countries met in New York to close ranks as talks on the climate deal head into crucial months before a Paris conference in December.

In a joint statement, they expressed “disappointment over the continued lack of any clear roadmap for developed countries to provide $100 billion per year by 2020, as well as on substantially scaling up financial support after 2020”.

The world’s developed countries agreed in 2010 to mobilise $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations adapt to the impacts of climate change and reduce their emissions.

Those commitments have fallen short by about $70 billion, according to the World Bank.

“There is still a clear expectation and so I hope the developing countries can fulfill their commitment before the Paris meeting,” China’s envoy for climate change Xie Zhenhua told reporters.

World governments will try to forge a new global deal to address climate change at a UN climate conference in December, with both developed and developing countries committing to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Financing to help developing nations cut emissions and adapt to climate change remains a key issue. South Africa’s Environment Minister Edna Molewa stressed that “the four countries sitting around this table have been, on our own, doing a lot of work” on climate change.

“It is important that this scaling up happens,” she said. “Adaptation requires a lot of money”.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2015

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