Governments must move quickly at this year’s first UN climate change meeting to plug the gaping deficit of funds to help developing countries adapt to climate change and lower their emissions.

A new report published today by Oxfam and WWF argues that a proposed deal to apply a carbon price to international shipping should be at the heart of the agreement at the UN climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, later this year.

At the most recent UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico in December 2010, governments saved the global climate negotiations from collapse.

As the latest United Nations climate change negotiations being held in Bonn, drew to a close today, Tim Gore, Oxfam's climate change policy advisor said;

For the past year we have all operated under the hangover of Copenhagen: the disappointment, suspicion, scepticism and disorientation. And while there was so much more that could have been accomplished at Cancun, the other side of these talks is a better place to be.

UN climate talks are off the life-support machine, following a last-minute agreement that gives the Kyoto Protocol a lifeline. It establishes a global Climate Fund and, while falling short of the emissions cuts needed, lays out a path to move towards them.

National self-interest and brinkmanship must not be allowed to sabotage the Cancun climate talks and risk reversing the progress made over the past two weeks, warned Oxfam on the penultimate day of the increasingly volatile Summit.

Halfway through the Cancun climate talks, negotiators have an opportunity to make real progress on a fair global climate fund and climate finance, said Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and Honorary President of Oxfam.

Oxfam response to the Finance section in the LCA text, which Ministers in Cancun are debating today:
 

Responding to the latest finance text that came out today, international climate change policy adviser Tim Gore said: