Developing countries urged rich nations today to provide cash quickly to help them cope with global warming and safeguard tropical forests at 187-nation talks in Poland on a new climate treaty.
The UN's top climate official said the December 1-12th meeting had started well, marking the half-way point in negotiations to agree by the end of 2009 in Copenhagen a new global treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
"We're out of the starting gates," Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Sectretariat, said of the meeting of 10,700 delegates which will test governments' willingness to work on climate change amid the economic slowdown.
"I'm happy with where we are," he said.
Developing nations say they need more financial help to combat warming that could bring more droughts, floods, more powerful cyclones and rising seas.
"I think it's really important, especially in the context of the financial crisis, to see how we can craft a Copenhagen agreement that makes it clear how financial resources will be generated," Mr de Boer said.
Several tropical nations, including Democratic Republic of Congo, Surinam and Papua New Guinea, said rich nations had to help them safeguard forests.
Trees soak up greenhouse gases as they grow, and burning forests to clear land for farming accounts for about 20 percent of warming from human activities. Governments have agreed that slowing deforestation will be part of the 2009 deal.
Reuters