A U.N. climate finance group is studying many sources of cash to help poor nations cope with climate change, aware that rich nations' budgets are already under strain, Norway's prime minister said on Monday.Jens Stoltenberg, appointed as co-chair of the U.N. climate expert group on Sunday to succeed former British prime minister Gordon Brown, told Reuters that sources such as carbon markets or shipping might be tapped for money."We have started work on many different sources of financing," Stoltenberg said of work since U.N. Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon appointed the 19-strong group in March to find ways to raise $100 billion a year from 2020 to help the poor curb greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change.Stoltenberg will co-chair the group, comprising government leaders, finance ministers and senior economists, with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Brown is stepping down after losing power last month to Conservative David Cameron.Stoltenberg said money from national budgets would remain an important source of financing, but that big debt and deficits in developed countries had forced the group to look elsewhere.The $100 billion goal was set by most nations as part of the Copenhagen Accord at a U.N. summit in December meant to avert more heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising ocean levels.But it did not say where the cash would come from. The accord also foresees quick-start funds of $10 billion a year until 2012 to help developing nations.CARBON MARKETSApart from national budgets, Stoltenberg said one option was carbon markets. He noted that Norway has proposed a model for auctioning 2 percent of all worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide and channelling the cash to developing nations.Another possibility was to raise cash by penalising emissions from international aviation and shipping, sectors outside the existing U.N. Kyoto Protocol for curbing greenhouse gases until 2012.A third option was to earmark revenues from existing carbon markets. He said it was too early to say which sources the group would recommend and stressed that it was up to governments to take final decisions.The group is due to report back in November. The Copenhagen Accord sets a goal of limiting a rise in world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) without saying how.Stoltenberg, who was one of the original 19 members of the U.N. panel, declined to take sides in a rich-poor dispute about the Accord's demand that funds must be "new and additional".Some developing nations say the $100 billion has to be over and above a promise made in the 1970s by rich nations to give at least 0.7 percent of their gross national income (GNI) in aid.Most developed nations, well short of the 0.7 percent target, say it will be additional to existing aid. Norway, rich from oil and gas exports, is an exception and gives 1.0 percent of its GNI a year in aid."It has to be additional at least to what we are allocating today," Stoltenberg said. "Whether it will be additional in other ways - it is part of the process to agree on that."For Reuters latest environment blogs, click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/(Editing by Noah Barkin)News posted by www.newsinfoline.com
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