PRAGUE (AFP) – European Union environment ministers called on the United States Wednesday to help the bloc lead and finance the battle against climate change.
"The EU has been the leader of the international debate. We want to keep on and to offer a co-leadership to the US," said Czech minister Martin Bursik, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.
"We need to build a coalition. It cannot be done unilaterally on the EU side," he told reporters after a meeting of EU environment ministers in Prague.
Earlier this month in Prague, US President Barack Obama vowed that the United States was "now ready to lead" on climate change, breaking with his predecessor George W. Bush, whose stance had long frustrated Europeans.
So far, the US has agreed to cut its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, while Europe has pledged to cut its own emissions by at least 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, and 30 percent if other advanced economies follow suit.
Bursik said he could see progress in the US, and if the Obama administration sticks to its plan, "it would be a very good starting point."
He also urged a deal on financing the battle against climate change ahead of a summit in Copenhagen in December, which is expected to produce a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.
"Without a financial package we can hardly succeed in Copenhagen," Bursik said, calling the summit "vital."
EU commissioner for the environment Stavros Dimas agreed that "without money we are not going to get anywhere. No money, no deal."
"It is not only an obligation of the EU to come with fundings and figures... the United States, Japan and all the developed countries should contribute," he added.
He said some 175 billion euros would be required annually until 2020 to fight climate change, and that the EU would need to have "a fair equitable contribution."
Up to now, the EU has been reluctant to disclose the amount of funding it would provide to combat climate change.
"It would not be the most useful thing... if we just delivered a sum and did not have the others around the table to state their part," said Swedish environment minister Andreas Carlgren, whose country will hold the EU presidency at the time of the Copenhagen summit.
"The next step is to define what will be a fair share and for that we need a sustainable and predictable funding," he said.
He urged other countries "to participate in our leadership with ambitious targets and ambitious contributions."
Bursik said on Tuesday it would take another 23 billion to 54 billion euros overall to adapt to the effects of climate change such as extreme floods, retreating Alpine glaciers and huge changes in precipitation patterns.
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