(Adds comments by Italy PM)
LONDON, Sept 20 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris
Johnson called on Monday for wealthy countries to meet a pledge
to spend $100 billion a year to tackle climate change as he
prepares to host a United Nations summit starting at the end of
October.
Johnson and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres will
hold a roundtable of world leaders on Monday to get rich
countries to deliver on the unmet pledge, made in 2009.
"Richer nations have reaped the benefits of untrammelled
pollution for generations, often at the expense of developing
countries," Johnson said in a statement.
"As those countries now try to grow their economies in a
clean, green and sustainable way we have a duty to support them
in doing so – with our technology, with our expertise and with
the money we have promised."
A report released on Friday by the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development said that rich countries likely
missed a goal to contribute $100 billion last year to helping
developing nations deal with climate change after increasing
funding by less than 2% in 2019.
In messaged comments from his climate round-table speech on
Monday, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said the $100
billion pledge had to be fulfilled.
He also said current measures on curbing global greenhouse
gas emissions were insufficient.
"All this is clear: this is far from the trajectory needed
to reach net zero by 2050," he said.
A U.N. analysis of country pledges under the Paris climate
agreement released last week said that under current national
pledges, global emissions would be 16% higher in 2030 than they
were in 2010 - far off the 45% reduction by 2030 that scientists
say is needed to stave off disastrous climate change.
Without more ambitious commitments, global temperatures
could hit 2.7C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the
century, the U.N. said.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, additional reporting by Stephen
Jewkes in Milan, Editing by Paul Sandle and Giles Elgood)