Rich countries have vowed to provide the money within three years until 2012 to help developing nations mitigate and adapt to climate change.

But a year after the pledge was made in Copenhagen in 2009, the mechanism remains unclear given the absence of an institution to deal with the money.

“The issue of the new fund should be settled at Cancun [Mexico] since the deadline to disburse the money is only two years away,” climate change finance negotiator Ismid Hadad said.

He said the new fund should be placed under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with the trustee elected through an open competitive bidding process.

“The trustee could be a new private financing institution or multilateral banks and Global Environmental Facility [GEF],” Ismid said.

Indonesia also expressed hope that the new fund could be used to finance adaptation, mitigation
and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD plus).

Developed nations want the World Bank or GEF to act as trustee for the new fund. Developing countries, however, have long complained over the complicated requirements by the GEF, leading to deadlock.

The UNFCCC said some $28 billion of the pledge was now available for disbursement. Developed
countries have also committed to mobilize $100 billion per year by 2020. Climate change financing is expected to be one of hottest issues in the climate change debate in Cancun starting next week, in addition to the long-delayed emission cut targets.

Negotiators from 190 countries will gather in Cancun for a two-week meeting starting Nov. 29 to discuss long-standing issues of  mitigation, finance, adaptation, technology transfer and emission cut targets.

Local NGOs also urged more explicit support from developed countries to support less-developed countries to reduce global emissions.

Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam) activist Siti Maemunah said Tuesday that the lavish lifestyle in European countries contributed significantly to increasing global energy consumption.

“Coal is the cheapest energy source for some countries,” she told a press conference, during which she also highlighted Jatam’s recent tour to several European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to observe the link of high carbon emissions from several coal mines in Kalimantan.

The three-week tour was aimed at building strategic alliances in raising awareness on the dangers of coal extraction.

For more than four decades, Indonesia has supplied raw material to countries with a huge dependence on fossil fuels, by granting them full access to mines, oil and gas exploration and oil palm plantation
development.

Kahar al Bahri of Jatam said more than 200 million tons of coal was extracted from Kalimantan each year, of which only 2 percent was used for domestic consumption. (ebf)

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