France proposes 'justice-climate' plan for poor countries

New Delhi, Nov. 13 (ANI): In order to break the deadlock between rich and poor during the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen, France is proposing a plan to help the world's poorest countries finance renewable energy projects, the country's Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said in New Delhi on Friday.

Borloo hopes the 'justice-climate' plan, to be financed by revenue from financial transactions, could raise 20 billion euros a year.

"I have distinguished between these categories and countries that are in the climate justice plan, are countries that will not have access to clean development mechanism. They will have no access to carbon markets because they are just too backwards. Which is why we need to finance this via a tax on financial transactions. A tax that will generate in an automatic way, funds upto 500 billion dollars over 20 years," said Borloo.

The money would be targeted towards specific programmes such as hydraulic dams, solar energy stations or wind turbines.

Borloo said, the developing countries should come up with money to help the developing nations.

"What is really needed is for industrialised countries to come up with public, automatic, regular, annual, predictable and additional fund for a climate justice plan and for developing countries and not adding up and mixing up. What Copenhagen needs in another words, is true money and real commitments," said Borloo.

Developing nations need 100 billion euros ($148 billion) a year from 2020 to battle climate change. About 22-50 billion euros of the total will come from the public purse in rich countries. (ANI)