EU climate funds 'insignificant' - developing countries

(COPENHAGEN) - Money promised in short-term climate aid by the European Union is "insignificant" and deepens distrust, the spokesman for developing countries at the UN climate talks said here on Friday.

"I believe they (the funds) are not only insignificant, they actually breed even more distrust on the intentions of European leaders on climate change," said Lumumba Stanislaus Dia-Ping of Sudan, representing the G77 and China bloc of poorer countries.

Dia-Ping said the pledge, agreed at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, failed to address the problem of setting up long-term finance mechanisms for poor countries in the firing line of climate change.

"Our view is that European leaders are acting as if they were climate skeptics," he told a press conference.

"Fundamentally, they are saying this problem does not exist and therefore they are providing no finance whatsover," he said.

Europe said it would give 7.2 billion euros (10.6 billion dollars) towards an envisioned fund worth 30 billion dollars to help developing nations tackle climate change over the three years from 2010-2012.

The package is viewed in Copenhagen as a sign of goodwill on longer-term finance, which is a core part of an overall deal for rolling back climate change under a post-2012 planet-wide pact.