The United States Monday unveiled a 350-million-dollar global effort to help provide clean energy technology to developing countries and invited top officials to a green summit next year.
US Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen that the new program will speed the delivery of renewable energy technologies to underdeveloped countries.
That will help them better combat greenhouse gas emissions, he said, as world leaders meet in the Danish capital to hammer out a new treaty to tackle global warming and replace the Kyoto treaty which expires in 2012.
Among the initiatives is a program to provide solar energy and LED lanterns to millions in the developing world who lack access to electricity, providing a low-cost alternative to expensive and polluting kerosene lamps.
"This program will yield immediate economic and public health benefits," a White House statement said, referring to the ambitious project dubbed Climate REDI or the new Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative.
The program will also seek to improve the efficiency of electrical appliances traded around the world by coordinating incentives and setting global standards.
And it will set up an online platform to share information among the members of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF), and provide technical assistance to poorer nations in developing renewable energy strategies.
The United States is to contribute a total of 85 million dollars to the five-year effort, while Britain, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland have together pledged 200 million dollars.
Australia, Italy and Sweden have also said they would put up funds for the new initiative, the White House said.
Chu also announced that Washington will host next year a ministerial-level meeting of the MEF forum, a working group of the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitters, which was launched by President Barack Obama in March 2009.
The group aims to foster international discussion on combating climate change and promoting clean energy, said Chu, without setting a date for the talks in the US capital.
The announcement came as Africa led a boycott of developing countries on Monday walking out of the working groups in Copenhagen with less then five days of negotiations left in the two-week conference.
They only returned after securing guarantees that the summit would not sideline talks about the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
A top Western negotiator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a round-table session of around 50 environment ministers Sunday had also been soured by "growing tensions between the Americans and Chinese."
"At the back of everyone's mind is the fear of a repeat of the awful scenario in The Hague," she told AFP, referring to a climate conference in 2000 that broke up angrily without agreement.
The Kyoto Protocol ties the rich countries — but not developing countries — that have ratified it to binding emissions curbs.
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