How to find $100bn

Thursday’s main event was a proposal from billionaire financier George Soros that would give poor countries access to a $100bn loan to tackle the effects of climate change, writes Fiona Harvey in the FT. On the face of it, this proposal could break the impasse between rich and poor countries on financing. Poor countries want rich countries to guarantee $100bn per year in financing by 2020. But rich countries have not agreed anything like that sum, and the talks are stalled on this issue. Soros’ idea is to use an obscure financial instrument known as special drawing rights (SDRs) – a type of basket currency used as an accounting unit as the IMF, and generally held by countries as part of their reserves.  Some poor countries and green groups welcomed the idea enthusiastically, but the EU’s lead negotiator was sceptical. The idea will not be decided on at Copenhagen, but may form part of future discussions.

Developing countries begin to differ

Divisions between developed and developing countries remained, and some cracks also appeared between developing countries. One strand of the discussions has had to be suspended because of complains from Tuvalu. http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=35461