Osaka, Japan - Britain, Japan and the United States on Friday urged developing and industrialized countries to sign up to a new framework of multilateral funds helping to battle climate change. Speaking at the outset of the Group of Eight (G8) finance ministers meeting in Osaka, Japanese Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga said he and his colleagues would "do their utmost" to get other countries on board of the newly launched Climate Investment Funds (CIFs).
The funds, championed by G8 members Japan, Britain, the United States and the World Bank, are an effort to support developing countries to meet carbon reduction goals while at the same time trying to prevent obstacles in development.
CIFs are an umbrella structure for two funds -the Clean Technology Funds (CTF), aimed at helping developing countries to finance the shift to clean technologies and the so-called Strategic Climate Funds, comprised of targeted programmes with dedicated funding to provide financing to pilot new approaches.
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson expressed optimism that both other G8 members as well as developing countries would sign up in order to get the CTF, with a planned budget of 10 billion dollars, off the ground.
"This fund is very important - it allows the world to get a head start while the UN 2012 climate agreement is negotiated," Paulson said, referring to the ongoing talks on a post-Kyoto agreement.
US President George W Bush this year committed 2 billion dollars over the next three years for the CTF. On Monday, Japan announced it would contribute up to 1.2 billion dollars to the investment funds, while Britain also said it was pledging funds.
Every single government had to contribute, Alistair Darling, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer urged.
"There are still some that need to be convinced," he told journalists, but stressed that entering into blame games was counter-productive.
"India and China see the need to act urgently," he said, deflecting criticism that major developing countries were refusing to pull their weight in the fight against climate change.
