( will President now run to Copenhagen in December? President already
said : no way - just the Nobel reception at the same time!)

                                  Surprising president Obama while
unblocking the negotiations on... climate

European Union leaders on Friday offered to contribute money to a
global fund to help developing countries tackle global warming hoping
kick-start stalled talks on a new agreement on climate change.

Bridging the Generation Gap on Climate (October 31, 2009)

But E.U. leaders disappointed climate campaigners by making the offer
conditional on donations from other parts of the world and by failing
to decide how much Europe would contribute to a global pot of up to 50
billion euros by 2020.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt insisted the E.U. now had "a
very strong negotiating position" to press for a global deal at United
Nations talks in Copenhagen in December that are aimed at agreeing a
successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol.

"There is no-one else among the industrialized nations" to have made
as concrete an offer of climate finance, Ms. Merkel told a press
conference in Brussels.
(..)

The European Commission had called on E.U. leaders to make an offer of
up to 15 billion euros annually by 2020.

Mr. Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister, said leaders had instead
agreed that developing nations needed about 100 billion euros annually
by 2020 and that, of that sum, between 22 billion euros and 50 billion
euros would have to come from public funds, as opposed to private
sources like investments in carbon-reduction projects.

Mr. Reinfeldt also said that E.U. nations could make a voluntary
decision to contribute to a so-called fast-track mechanism that would
make funds available immediately to developing countries.

Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, put a
brave face on the result, underlining that the trade bloc should not
be "naive" going into the negotiations in Copenhagen that are set to
begin in fewer than six weeks.
"Our offer is not a blank check," said Mr. Barroso. "We are ready to
act, if our partners deliver," he said.