£69bn climate cash 'must not be loans', charity warns

THE annual £69 billion pledged by rich countries to help poor nations deal with climate change must not be given as loans. Oxfam warned yesterday that such a move would simply increase Third World debt.

The aid agency also said the amount provided for developing countries to do so without polluting and handle the impacts of rising temperatures needs to double to 137bn a year.

At the UN climate summit in Copenhagen last December, countries pledged to find ways of delivering a mixture of public and private finance to the tune of 69bn a year by 2020 to help poor countries cope with and tackle global warming.

Oxfam said public cash was needed to help the world's poorest people, as companies were unlikely to invest in small-scale projects with little or no financial return.

Ahead of the next round of talks in Bonn this week,

Oxfam said money for poor countries to develop in ways that do not replicate the pollution of rich nations – for example building wind farms instead of coal-fired power stations – and to deal with climate impacts such as floods, droughts and storms should form a key part of any future international deal on global warming.

Oxfam senior policy adviser Antonio Hill said: "At a time of economic emergency, when several poor countries are slashing critical health and education budgets to avoid a debt crisis, rich countries are considering saddling them with climate debt for a situation they did not cause and are worst affected by."