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Spain pledges $150 million to climate protection for poor nations, as Lima talks resume

"We call upon all countries who have not yet contributed to join in," said a spokesperson for the international Green Climate Fund, after Spain became the 22nd nation to contribute to a fund to help poor nations cope with the effects of climate change.

  • By Karl Ritter and Frank Bajak Reuters

| Oslo, Norway

A Spanish pledge of 120 million euros ($150 million) to a fund to help poor nations cope with global warming has raised the total close to the $10 billion U.N. target before a U.N. meeting in Peru next week to work on a climate deal.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) said on Friday that pledges now totalled $9.7 billion from 22 nations, just shy of the U.N. goal but well short of $15 billion demanded by developing nations for a first capitalisation.

"We call upon all countries who have not yet contributed to join in," Hela Cheikhrouhou, executive director of the Seoul-based GCF, said in a statement.

Canada promised C$300 million ($260 million) last week after a donors' conference raised $9.3 billion in Berlin. The United States has been the biggest single donor, with up to $3 billion, ahead of Japan on $1.5 billion.

Almost 200 nations will meet in Lima from Dec. 1-12 to work on a new deal to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions, meant to be agreed at a summit in Paris in a year's time.

Pledges in recent weeks by China, the United States and the European Union to limit emissions have helped brighten prospects for a deal, even though it is likely to be too weak to match U.N. calls for deep cuts to limit heatwaves, droughts and rising seas.

Jan Kowalzig of aid and development charity Oxfam said rich nations now needed to do far more to keep a promise made in 2009 to raise financial flows, from both public and private sources, to $100 billion a year by 2020.

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