Rich nations' climate cash offers still not clear

By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Just weeks from a major U.N. climate summit, rich nations have yet to unveil specific amounts to help poor countries fight global warming, Canada's finance minister said on Friday.

Funding to help poorer nations adapt to rising seas and more chaotic weather is a make-or-break issue for talks to try to seal a broader climate pact in Copenhagen next month.

The U.N. climate chief has called for an initial $10 billion in funding to be offered by rich nations in Copenhagen. EU leaders say developing countries would need 100 billion euros by 2020.

But Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said there were still no specific numbers on the table during high-level discussions at a recent G20 meeting or during a gathering of Asia-Pacific leaders, ministers and CEOs that ends on Sunday.

"At the G20 meeting in Scotland (last week) we talked about financing options but we did not talk about numbers," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Three weeks from the start of the Dec 7-18 meeting in Denmark, that remained the case, he said.

The G20 finance ministers made very little progress during their talks on climate funding in Scotland, with heated arguments over who should foot the bill.

Developing nations, where per-capita emissions are a fraction of those in the developed world, say rich countries are responsible for most of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution and so must help them adapt.