(DOHA) - Efforts to tackle global climate change will fail unless poorer countries are helped to adapt to the environmental and technological challenges, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was set to say in Doha on Saturday.

"Climate change is going to be crucial for developing countries," Barroso was to tell the UN conference on Financing for Development, according to prepared remarks.

He was referring to a conference next month in Poznan, Germany and a summit in Copenhagen next year, both aiming to grapple with climate change.

"Doha and Poznan have to move forward together, hand in hand. Indeed, Copenhagen will not succeed without a serious solution on adaptation," he said.

Following on from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's call on Friday for a "truly global stimulus plan", Barroso said: "Global crises call for global solutions."

"A global answer requires the presence of all regions in the world, representing the voice of the rich, the emerging and the poorest."

Barroso told AFP on Friday that projects to deal with climate change and provide energy security can contribute to growth, while renewable energy projects such as solar power "can be a great source of revenue" in developing countries.

For those countries, the challenges of climate change comes on top of threats to food and energy security and an uncertain impact from the recession in major economies, "while hundreds of millions of people cannot afford basic foodstuffs and risk falling deeper into poverty," according to his Saturday remarks.

The multiple crises mean it is "all the more necessary" to achieve the UN's Millennium Development Goals and other targets, Barroso said, noting that 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty, on less than 1.25 dollars a day.

"It is more important than ever that donors honour their aid volume and aid effectiveness packages," he said, also calling for committments to be "further enhanced to respond to new challenges."

Earlier this month, the EU adopted a 1 billion euro food programme, increasing to 1.8 billion euros the region's contribution to helping developing countries deal with the food crisis, Barroso said.

Ban told journalists on Friday that responding to climate change could lead to renewed growth and implementing the technologies could create "millions of jobs".

The UN conference began work on Saturday on updating the six-year-old Monterrey Consensus on aid to developing countries but the absence of many key world leaders has raised doubts about the outcome.

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