W

ith just a day to go before the Barcelona climate talks end, developed nations remain hesitant about the long-awaited financial commitment to help developing countries deal with climate change.

Ismet Hadad, the Indonesian delegate dealing with financial issues, said the delay of any commitment would hinder developing nations in facing the impacts of climate change.

"The talk on the financing in Barcelona is still tough between rich and developing nations," he said in a statement made available to The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

He said Indonesia had proposed setting up a new body to handle financial assistance and distribute the money to affected countries.

Indonesia has asked developed nations to help developing countries fund mitigation and adaptation to deal with climate change.

Negotiators from 190 countries are gathering in Barcelona, Spain, until Friday to prepare a draft agreement on, among others, emissions cut targets and financial assistance to be adopted at a major UN conference in Copenhagen in December.

But no specific commitment on emissions cut targets was reached, with developed nations - Norway being the notable exception - yet to announce any figure on cuts after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol ends.

The Barcelona talks, the fifth meeting on climate change this year, are the last chance for countries to agree on measures needed to slow climate change before Copenhagen.

An assessment by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNfccc) says mitigation measures needed to return global emissions to current levels by 2030 require global investment and financial flows of between US$200 and $210 billion annually.

Mitigation efforts are aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the forestry, transportation and energy sectors, among others.

The UNfccc estimates financial flows for adaptation efforts in developing countries will be between $28 and $67 billion.

Indonesia claims to have allocated $500 million for the effort.

The government has to date received a $200 million loan from the French financial institution Agence Francaise de Development, and a $300 million loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation to help combat climate change.

However, activists have criticized the government for receiving loans on climate change.

The Forestry Ministry says Indonesia needs at least $4 billion from foreign donors to halt deforestation by empowering local residents and stopping forest conversions.

Indonesia, one of the nations most vulnerable to the severe impacts of climate change, supports planned emissions cuts from the forestry sector through the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) scheme.

Critics say the REDD will only be effective if rich nations commit to emissions cuts.

Indonesia has one of the world's largest forested areas, with 120 million hectares of rainforest. But the country also has the highest deforestation rate in the world, with about 1.08 million hectares lost to widespread illegal logging, forest fires and farmland conversion.