Peru minister says US mulls major climate funds

Peru's foreign affairs minister yesterday said that the US is seriously considering "a significant announcement" about funding international climate initiatives in the run-up to the next round of UN climate talks in Lima this year.

Foreign minister Gonzalo Gutierrez said he expects the US funding announcement as soon as November. He met yesterday with US secretary of state John Kerry where the two discussed a range of topics including climate change. Guiterrez said Kerry told him the announcement would be coming soon.

"We think that an announcement of significant capitalization before Lima will be a very important signal for the entire negotiation process," Gutierrez said, and urged other countries to consider similar commitments.

The State Department said it had no comment on Gutierrez's remarks.

Gutierrez spoke at an event on climate change and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiation process held at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

The next UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP 20) will be held in Lima in December. The Lima negotiations are designed to establish a text that could become a new global climate agreement at COP 21 in Paris in 2015.

In a brief public appearance with Kerry before their meeting yesterday, Gutierrez called on the US and other countries to make "real pledges" to the Green Climate Fund, which has been set up through the UNFCCC process to support mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries. Countries have pledged about $2.4bn to the fund, well short of the $10bn UNFCCC officials hoped would be mobilized by the end of the year.

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