2 November 2009 / REUTERS, PARIS
France is proposing a plan to help the world’s poorest countries finance renewable energy projects that it hopes will form part of upcoming climate talks, Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said in an interview on Sunday.
The “justice-climate” plan could be financed by revenue from financial transactions, he told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, without elaborating or specifically calling for a tax. Borloo hopes the plan, which the newspaper quoted sources saying could raise 20 billion euros a year, will help break the deadlock between rich and poor at talks in Copenhagen in December aimed at agreeing a new climate treaty. “The industrialized countries which have polluted a lot should mobilize to finance the development of renewable energy in the most vulnerable countries,” Borloo told the newspaper. “They represent 1.2 billion people who suffer the most from climate problems. Between this shock, their lack of economic development and their absence from big international negotiations, they are really undergoing a triple punishment.”
