Brussels - The European Union and US must boost their support for emerging states such as China, India and Brazil in the fight against climate change, in order to make an international deal viable, the head of the UN's climate body said Monday. "Europe has to begin thinking now about the kind of financial architecture it can put in place that will make it possible for large developing countries like China, India and Brazil to engage" in a world deal on climate change, Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said.
That support should be organized on a government-to-government level, as well as via international market tools, he stressed.
And while he welcomed recent US initiatives to bring together the biggest industrialized and developing nations, de Boer cautioned that only an approach which respected the different needs of growing economies would be likely lead to a final deal.
"Given the nature of the language that was agreed in (UN climate talks in) Bali, I don't believe it will be possible to have a similar approach" for both rich and developing nations, he said.
The EU ministerial meeting focused on a series of laws proposed by the EU's executive, the European Commission, aimed at cutting the 27- member bloc's emissions of CO2.
Ministers pushed for their member states to accept the laws in principle before the end of the year, in order to give the EU a strong negotiating position in talks on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on fighting climate change.
"The international community is watching Europe to see ... how the political leadership shown in Bali is translated into real policy advances," de Boer said.
While de Boer stressed that it was as yet too early to comment on the details of the package of laws, he welcomed the "sense of urgency" which EU states were showing over the issue.
But he urged EU members to do more on a government level to help developing economies adopt climate-friendly technology, rather than trying to protect EU industry by using tariffs and import taxes.
The issue of protecting national industries would be "better achieved by helping developing countries achieve the same standard of environmental policies and industrial production, rather than working through negative trade measures," he said.
