Cash seen key to U.N. climate deal

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

PARIS (Reuters) - Tens of billions of dollars are likely to be needed to help poor nations curb greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change under a new U.N. treaty, European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said.

"Everybody agreed that additional money is needed and without money an agreement in Copenhagen will not be possible," Dimas told Reuters after the first day of a two-day meeting of 17 major greenhouse gas emitters in Paris on Monday.

The talks among environment ministers, the second in an initiative by U.S. President Barack Obama, are working on a new U.N. treaty due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

"We didn't discuss this (issue of cash) but the sooner we have this discussion the better," he said of the talks which included the world's top greenhouse gas emitters led by China, the United States, the EU, Russia and India.

The EU will debate climate finances at a summit on June 18-19 after delays partly caused by recession that has hit state coffers. EU leaders have previously agreed to contribute their fair share to developing nations, Dimas said.

Asked how much cash he reckoned was needed to help curb emissions, Dimas noted a European Commission document in January quoted independent researchers' estimates of net global incremental investments of 175 billion euros ($245 billion) by 2020.

Half of that total would be needed in developing nations.

And he noted the same report quoted a U.N. estimate that costs of helping developing nations adapt to impacts of climate change -- ranging from drought-resistant crops to coastal barriers against rising sea levels -- would be between 23 and 54 billion euros a year by 2030.