Proper institution needed to manage 'fast-start funds': negotiator
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A proper institution, committee or body, should be set up to look after "fast start funds" to help developing countries combat climate change, a negotiator from an island country said here on Tuesday.
Such a body should be established and managed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), instead of other institutions such as the World Bank, the negotiator said on condition of anonymity on the sideline of a closed-door contact group meeting at the UN climate talks.
The funds should also be offered through multilateral arrangements under the Convention instead of via bilateral agreements, he told Xinhua.
These will be among the key issues on funding which will be negotiated in the working group sessions during the UN climate change talks taking place here, he added.
"Fast start funds" were initiated at the 15th Conference of the Parties to UNFCC last December in Copenhagen, Denmark, after developed countries pledged to offer funds to help developing countries combat climate change.
The European Union, for instance, promised to contribute 2.4 billion euros (3.3 billion U.S. dollars) each year in the next three years to help developing countries; however, it did not elaborate on details such as what channels would be used for contributing and which countries would benefit.
"The (fast start) funds should be new and extra funding," the negotiator added.
Some reports have said that developing countries were objecting to the way in which developed countries were repackaging previously pledged aid funds as "fast start funds".
The negotiator also said he hoped that the UN talks in Tianjin could produce something good for the upcoming Cancun Conference, which will be held from Nov. 29 to December 10 in Mexico.
However, if no consensus was reached in the negotiations here, he said it would make it all the more difficult for Cancun to produce any agreements, .
The fourth round of the UN working group-level climate change negotiations this year entered the second day in Tianjin on Tuesday. Negotiators are involved in closed-door contact and drafting group meetings to revise or draft documents for approval by ministers attending the Cancun Conference.
The 12th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) under the UNFCC and the 14th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties (AWG-KP) to the Kyoto Protocol opened here on Monday.
More than 3,000 delegates from the parties and related countries and organizations are here to attend the six-day event.
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