Abuja — The developed economies, under the aegies of Group 77 nations and China, are uncomfortable with the campaign by African countries to extract an annual $67billion financial aid commitment from the industrialised economies.

This will serve as a form of compensation to assuage the ravaging incidence of environmental pollution and degradation in the continent.

At the just concluded Climate Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, African countries, under the auspices of the African Union, tabled their common position on what they expect the rest of the industrialised world to do to help poor nations adapt to the environmental impact of climate change factors.

However, the UN-sponsored climate change talks in Bangkok ended without reaching an agreement on key issues.

Coordinator of the Nigeria Climate Action Network, Mr. Ewah Eleri, who was at the talks, said the debate for financial bail-out as well as the push for agreement on mechanisms by which developing countries can access resources for climate change adaptation, polarised the participants with Africa and other developing nations queuing up on one side, against the G-77 and China.

"AU estimates that we will need $67billion annually to combat climate change and it is demanding that developed countries should set aside one per cent of their GDP to fund adaptation programmes in Africa," he said.

He listed some of the key issues on which Africa's position revolves to include how to get countries to agree on format for gas emission reduction, mechanisms by which developing countries could access resources to fund their adaptation and mitigation programmes, as well as how to ensure seamless technology transfer in the area of clean energy and carbon trading.

Eleri said Nigeria is particularly pushing for a treaty that would appreciate its position as an oil producing country that depends to a large extent on income from crude oil and whose economy could be adversely affected in the event of an uncoordinated implementation of climate change intervention measures.

The negotiations in Bangkok is to be followed by five days of talks in Barcelona, Spain from November, before the UN Climate Change Conference, which will hold in Copenhagen from December 7 to 18.