British Finance Minister Alistair Darling today urged his G20 counterparts to work toward a $100 billion deal to tackle climate change but developing nations insisted they did not want to talk about it. Britain is hosting the third meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers this year in St Andrews, Scotland, and is determined to push forward on an ambitious target to meet the costs of climate change by 2020, ahead of a major environmental summit in Copenhagen next month. 

But there appeared to be little chance of a breakthrough with many emerging countries questioning whether it should even be a topic of discussion at the forum of leading economies, just as they did at a London meeting in September. "The issue is whether we talk about it or not. Britain is quite motivated on this subject but there are some quite strong objections," a French official said. 

The official further said "The emerging market countries say it should not be discussed for procedural reasons, that the G20 is not the right forum." German officials predicted no meaningful breakthrough. "At the moment the talks on financing climate protection seem to be at a dead-end," one German delegation source said, picking out China as obstructing progress. 

China is often denounced by Western critics as a stumbling block to agreement, because it argues developing countries should not submit to binding international caps on emissions while they grow out of poverty. In turn, China and other emerging powers have said the rich countries have done far too little in vowing to cut their own greenhouse gas output, and in offering technology and money to the Third World to help cope with global warming. - Reuters