EU pledges 2.4 bn euros a year in climate aid

Finance has emerged as a stumbling block to a global climate agreement in Copenhagen to replace the Kyoto Protocol,the U.N.s main tool for fighting global warming. The Kyoto agreement expires in 2012.

Poor nations are not convinced that industrialised states will fulfil pledges to help fund emissions cuts,but the EU hopes those suspicions might be allayed by rich countries paying up to 7 billion euros ($10.3 billion) a year until the new climate agreement kicks in.