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The demand highlights tensions ahead of the COP26 climate summit between the world's 20 largest economies, which are behind 80% of greenhouse gas emissions, and developing countries that are bearing the brunt of the effects of global warming.
"If we prove that someone is responsible for something, it is his responsibility to pay for that," said Tanguy Gahouma, chair of the African Group of Negotiators at COP26, the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, which starts on 31 October.
In 2009, developed countries agreed to raise $100bn per year by 2020 to help the developing world deal with the fallout from a warming planet. The latest available estimates from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show this funding hit $79.6 billion in 2019, just 2% more than in 2018.
"They say they achieved maybe 70% of the target, but we cannot see that," Gahouma said.
"We need to have a clear roadmap how they will put on the table the $100bn per year, how we can track (it)," he said in an interview on Thursday. "We don't have time to lose and Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions of the world."
Temperatures in Africa are rising at a faster rate than the global average, according to the latest U.N. climate report. It forecasts further warming will lead to more extreme heatwaves, severe coastal flooding and intense rainfall on the continent. Even as wealthy nations miss the $100bn target, African countries plan to push for this funding to be scaled up more than tenfold by 2030.
"The $100bn was a political commitment. It was not based on the real needs of developing countries to tackle climate change," Gahouma said.
"Limited delegations, with a very huge amount of work and limited time. This will be very challenging," Gahouma said.
Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world's largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day.
Go to: https://www.reuters.com/