Aid organisation Oxfam says Australia has paid its "fair share" of the $30 billion pledged three years ago to help developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to unavoidable climate change.
But Oxfam says rich countries need to commit new funding through to 2020 when environment ministers gather in Doha this week for the next round of UN climate talks.
In Copenhagen in 2009 developed countries pledged to spend $100 billion-a-year by 2020 to help poorer countries deal with dangerous climate change.
To get things started they promised $30 billion through to 2012.
"Australia's $620 million represented a fair share of the $30 billion global goal and is notable for the portion allocated to adaptation (52 per cent), the transparency of reporting, the priority given to least-developed countries and small island developing states, and for being fully grants-based," an Oxfam report, released on Sunday, states.
While generally positive the analysis does note, however, that only 60 per cent of Canberra's pledge was added after Copenhagen and so could be considered "new money".
But in context even that statistic isn't too damning.
The Oxfam report suggests that of the total $30 billion committed by the developed world only 33 per cent was new money not previously pledged.
What's more 57 per cent was provided in the form of loans developing countries must repay at varying levels of interest.
Oxfam is worried that on the eve of the Qatar talks developed countries are yet to make any concrete financial commitments for 2013 to 2020.
"Developing countries are heading towards a climate fiscal cliff without any certainty about how they will be supported to adapt to climate change after 2012," Oxfam Australia policy adviser Kelly Dent said in a statement.
"Political leaders must genuinely consider propositions for new income streams, such as a fair charge on shipping emissions or new taxes on financial transactions in order to generate revenue for the green climate fund."
Oxfam says if developing countries lack confidence regarding financing, the prospects of negotiating a legally binding emissions-reduction agreement by 2015 covering all major polluting countries "are greatly diminished".
The Doha negotiations will focus on how to secure a global deal as well as the $100 billion per year 2020 commitment.
Earlier this month environmental think-tank the Climate Institute warned that if talks collapse it could lead to a "wild west" approach to reducing carbon emissions.
But the Sydney-based institute said Australia's recent in-principle decision to take on a second Kyoto commitment meant Doha was now more likely to succeed.
Australia will be represented by junior climate change minister Mark Dreyfus.
AAP
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