T

he first week of negotiations at the Climate Change Conference (COP19) in Warsaw, were dominated by how and when the US$100 billion, promised to tackle the effects of climate change, would be made available.

The head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres said the ongoing discussions looked at how the $100 billion would be mobilized before 2020 as well as after 2020, when the new 2015 global climate agreement would come into force.

'€œI hope that here in Warsaw there is clarity on how countries plan to mobilize the funding pledged for 2020. That is the main challenge we have here in Warsaw,'€ Figueres said during a press conference

In 2009 in Copenhagen, developed nations pledged $10 billion annually to support climate action in developing countries from 2010 to 2012 and agreed to further increase this financing to $100 billion annually by 2020.

Developing nations in particular want to know how the developed world plans to keep its promise of '€œmobilizing'€ the funds by 2020 to help them cope with the effects of climate change and greenhouse-gas emissions, as well as the movement of large numbers of people due to rising seas levels.

In Warsaw, it is expected that countries will agree on a roadmap to further scale up support to reach the $100 billion target by 2020.

Separately, Joan MacNaughton, World Energy Council executive director warned developing countries, especially in Africa, not to pin too much hope on financial pledges from Western nations.

MacNaughton said that helping countries threatened by climate change would not be high on developed countries'€™ priority lists.

'€œGovernment balance sheets are very threatened, maybe they are not giving [the issue] enough priority,'€ she said in a press conference on Saturday.

She also said it would be politically risky to demand more compensation from the West and suggested that developing countries started to build their own initiatives by working with the private sector.

'€œ[Dependency on the West] is vulnerable to domestic politics and so the key really is how to get the private sector to invest vigorously,'€ she said.

The Warsaw Climate Change Conference is expected to enter a more difficult stage next week, with the arrival of environment ministers.

The negotiations have been made more difficult due to the fact that no text has emerged to form the basis of the 2015 agreement.

'€œWork is being done but there have been no concrete results to report on yet. All items under negotiation are being considered and discussed by all relevant parties,'€ Figueres said.

Figueres herself has been under fire for her scheduled appearance at the Coal Association talks held in parallel with the COP19 event on Monday.

She justified her attendance at the controversial event by saying that the fossil fuel industry could contribute a solution to climate change.

'€œBusinesses have capital, technology and knowledge to align with the low carbon economy that governments are working toward,'€ she said.