Norway, Mexico launch joint climate funding model

OSLO, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Norway and Mexico on Saturday launched a joint model for climate funding at the climate change negotiations in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, said the Norwegian government.

The model, which seeks to set up a Green Fund for financing climate actions in developing countries, will be built on contributions from public budgets and auctions of UN allowances, according to a press release issued by the Norwegian prime minister's office.

The fund is set to start with about 10 billion U.S. dollars in 2013 and expected to reach 30 billion to 40 billion dollars by 2020.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg agreed that it is crucial to reach an agreement on financing climate actions in developing countries in order to make the Copenhagen conference a success.

"We hope that through our joint proposal we can help develop a funding model everyone can endorse," the two leaders was quoted by the press release as saying.

It is necessary to combine complementary sources of financing and this money should finance adaption and mitigation efforts in developing ones, stressed the two leaders, noting that financing should "be based on results."

The Saturday's joint model has combined both of the two sides' earlier proposals tabled separately on the negotiations.

Norway's proposal is a model according to which a certain percentage of the total UN allowances would be allocated for international auction to raise funds for climate actions in developing nations.

In the mean time, Mexico had proposed to establish a Green Fund that assigns funding quota based on each countries' emissions, the gross domestic product (GDP) and population.

The joint model defined that the most vulnerable countries, along with the least developed countries and small island developing countries, will be given priority of accepting fundings.

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, developed nations are committed to quantified emission reduction targets and provision of support in financing, technology and capacity building to developing nations.