Brown pledges £300 million to EU climate change package
Telegraph
[QUOTE]The European Union has agreed a £6.5 billion three-year package to fast-track the response to global warming in the poorest countries, of which Gordon Brown has pledged to provide £1.5 billion, it has been announced. The Prime Minister upped the British figure at the last minute from £1.2 billion to £1.5 billion - the largest national share - to encourage bigger offers, particularly from Spain and Italy. The final figure was above the target for agreement at the Copenhagen climate summit
France and Germany pledged around £1.2 billion each over three years.
Asked why the British contribution was the biggest, Mr Brown said: ''I think we have done the right thing. This offer is one of the ways we can get a global agreement at Copenhagen.'' He said that because of its Commonwealth background, Britain was historically committed to helping poor nations, particularly in Africa - and he predicted that Germany and France would also increase their contributions to the so-called ''fast start'' fund to help the developing nations meet their share of the financial burden of a global deal
The Prime Minister also confirmed that EU leaders meeting in Brussels have agreed they will offer a 30 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, if other countries are willing to commit themselves to ambitious reductions in Copenhagen. This offer falls short of Mr Brown's call earlier this week for the EU to commit itself to 30 per cent cuts regardless of what other developed countries do. Mr Brown said the unanimous decisions amounted to ''a very significant move forward in the search for a Copenhagen agreement''.[/QUOTE]
Meanwhile public debt is soaring the the government refuses to cut back overspending, as shown by this example. But hey, its only our hard earned money!
