Finance gap could ´wreck´ climate talks

American billionaire George Soros says wide disagreements over climate-change financing for poor countries “could actually wreck” the Copenhagen climate conference.

The investor-philanthropist says the 10-billion-a-year-US dollars, three-year proposal being put forward by richer nations is “not much, it´s not sufficient.” Developing countries are demanding much more.

Soros on Thursday proposed a partial solution, shifting some of the International Monetary Fund´s mission from providing liquidity to stressed financial markets to financing clean-energy projects in developing countries. But he said US officials told him that opposition in Congress would block such a plan.

On Wednesday, the US and China exchanged barbs at the climate talks, underscoring the suspicion between the world´s two largest carbon polluters about the sincerity of their pledges to control emissions.

Source: COP15

The liveeco team

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