A two-day meeting of climate change finance negotiators in the United Nations sponsored summit in Mexico City resulted in little progress for the Transnational Committee (TC) of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the fund that will help poor and developing nations cope with the adverse effects of climate change.

The two-day meeting, held last April 28-29, attended by 40 countries did not end with much concrete progress as tensions between rich donor countries and poor recipients lingered.

The meeting of the 40-member TC was off to a bad start when representatives of 25 developing nations and 15 developed nations could not agree on who will lead the meeting.

Later in the first day, co-chairmen were finally chosen from Mexico, Norway and South Africa.

The creation of the UN climate fund was one of the agreements reached in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Cancun, Mexico last December. Negotiators laid the framework for a GCF which will have at its disposal $100 billion a year from 2020.

The Fund will be governed by the Green Climate Board with 24 members, with equal number of members from developing and developed countries.

The resources would help poor countries cope with the devastating effects of climate change while preventing its worst effect by mitigating the use of carbon fuel.

Officials are desperate to fulfill pledges made in Cancun and set the stage for a binding agreement to reverse climate change at the next major meeting Durban, South Africa, in December. But, so far, progress has been slow and labored.

"Members stressed the need for efficiency and effectiveness through clear accountability," the UN panel tasked with climate change work said in a statement.

Developing countries claim that they are the most vulnerable and worst hit by climate change and insist that developed countries, that are considered huge carbon emitters, pay for their mitigation and adaptation measures. They are demanding for what they called "climate justice."

Composed of finance and climate change experts, the task of TC is to propose an effective design for the fund in time for the next UN Climate Conference in Durban.

No one is expecting the TC to complete the design for the GCF in Mexico City. Many are planning to meet at least three more times before December.

But many representatives who attended the two-day meet have serious doubts whether a mutually agreed plan will be ready for the upcoming UNFCCC meeting in Durban.#30