EU offers billions to climate fund

The EU has struck a deal to give up to 50 billion euros (£45bn) to help pay the costs developing nations face in adapting to and tackling climate change.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the EU is ready to provide other financing to pay the 100 billion euros (£90bn) a year that the EU says poor nations will need by 2020.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Europeans "now have a very strong negotiating position" to seek tight greenhouse gas emissions cuts at UN talks in Copenhagen in December.

At his summit press conference before returning to London, Mr Brown described the EU climate change deal as a "prelude" to successful global talks in Copenhagen.

"People realise that we are only a few days away from the negotiations in Copenhagen. We were aware that if we did not come together to make progress, the possibility of a deal (in Copenhagen) would be a lot less likely," he said.

Oxfam Senior Policy Adviser on Climate Change Robert Bailey warned the summit deal offered no guarantees that the pledged climate change funding for developing countries would not be poached from existing development aid budgets.

He said Oxfam's estimate of the overall global figure to be publicly funded was at least double the EU estimate - as much as 110 billion euros.

Elise Ford, head of Oxfam International's Brussels office, added: "This is not yet a break-through for a climate deal. But the EU has shown that real numbers can now be negotiated".

Greenpeace EU climate policy director Joris den Blanken said the summit had stopped short of committing the EU to a specific share of the financial burden of tackling climate change:

"The EU failed to use this opportunity to put its money where its mouth is" he said. "But all is not lost: today 27 of the world's richest nations have backed global funding to tackle climate change in developing countries."