With days remaining in the Copenhagen climate talks, the rich have finally begun to discuss climate financing for the poor. The negotiating round has gone on for two years with little serious discussion on financing and many other topics, a gaping failure of a process run by and for rich-country politicians who do not like to be bothered with unpleasant details. This will not do. Climate financing needs a formula.

The governing law is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change signed in 1992. It is unambiguous. “The developed country Parties . . . shall provide new and additional financial resources to meet the agreed full costs incurred by developing country Parties in complying with their obligations” under the treaty. Moreover, “developed country Parties . . . shall also assist the developing country Parties that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting costs of adaptation to those adverse effects”. The treaty emphasises the need for “adequacy and predictability in the flow of funds”.

If negotiations were in good faith and properly managed, two years would have been enough to determine the mechanisms for new, additional, adequate and predictable resources to meet the needs of the developing countries. Of course, no such discussions took place. Political leaders of the developed countries did not speak frankly with their own citizens, nor did they deign to negotiate with the poorer countries. President Barack Obama has not breathed a word to the American people about the financing responsibilities of Americans to the developing countries under long-agreed international law.