PARIS, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- France pledged to raise annual financing for climate change to 5 billion euros (5.7 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020 to help weak states fighting global warming, the Elysee, the president office, said on Wednesday.
At a weekly cabinet meeting, French government said it would allocate 100 million euros in 2016 to poor countries to tackle severe droughts, torrential rainfalls and rising sea levels, which are, according to scientists, the consequences of increasing carbon emissions.
By 2020, 4 billions euros of loans would be offered by the French Development Agency annually. In addition, more than 370 million euros of grants were planned over the period in a bid to finance schemes aimed at adapting poor states to the impact of natural disasters.
At Copenhagen summit in 2009, developed countries promised to grant 100 billion U. S. dollars to world's poorest countries to fight climate change. So far, 62 billion U.S. dollars has been collected. Multilateral development banks and several countries have pledged to provide additional funding to meet the financing target by 2020, according to the Elysee statement.
About 150 countries representing about 90 percent of global greenhouse emissions of greenhouse have submitted their national contributions to trim global warming, it added.
France and its European partners wants to slash by half green gas emissions by 2050 and to record net zero emissions by 2100.
It will host Climate Conference in Paris (COP21) in December where officials target a global and binding agreement to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.
40,000 visitors, including more than 3,000 journalists were expected to take part in the United Nations' 21st conference on climate, the presidency office said. (1 euro = 1.141 U.S. dollars)
