Developing nations seek cash in U.N. warming fight

By Alister Doyle and Gabriela Baczynska

POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - Developing nations urged rich nations at U.N. climate talks on Tuesday to raise aid despite the financial crisis to help the poor cope with global warming and safeguard tropical forests.

The U.N.'s top climate official said the December 1-12 meeting of 10,700 delegates had started well as the half-way point in negotiations to agree a new climate treaty by the end of 2009 in Copenhagen.

"I'm happy with where we are," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said of the meeting which will test governments' willingness to work on climate change amid a global economic slowdown.

"I think it's really important, especially in the context of the financial crisis, to see how we can craft a Copenhagen agreement that makes it clear how financial resources will be generated."

Developing nations say they will need billions of dollars to help them combat warming and adapt to changes such as droughts, floods, more powerful cyclones and rising seas. Rich nations say they will help, but have made few pledges.

"It's imperative that the level of financing is up to the challenge, that's the basic starting point," Andre Odenbreit Carvalho, a Brazilian Foreign Ministry official, told delegates.

Several nations, including Democratic Republic of Congo, Suriname and Papua New Guinea, said rich nations had to help them safeguard tropical forests.

Trees soak up greenhouse gases as they grow, and burning forests to clear land for farming accounts for about 20 percent of warming from human activities. Governments want measures to slow deforestation as part of the 2009 deal.