Developed countries must provide scaled up, new, predictable and adequate financial resources to avoid a gap in their funding of adaptation and mitigation activities in developing countries, the Fijian government said Sunday.

Together with members of the Alliance of Small Island States ( AOSIS), Fiji was demanding that not only should developed countries deliver on their pledges, they must ensure that the additional climate finance is easily accessible with clear targets on its delivery over the next phase, Fiji's Ministry of Information said in a statement.

Developed countries in 2009 pledged at the Copenhagen United Nations climate change summit to provide "new, additional resources" of around 30 billion U.S. dollars for the period 2010- 2012, commonly called "fast-start finance". A 19-member delegation from Fiji has positioned itself at the negotiations to call on developed countries to address the "funding gap" between the end of fast-start finance this year and the 100 billion U.S. dollars per year pledge by 2020.

In Doha, Qatar, the European Union stressed the bloc's financial support, saying it had contributed 9.3 million U.S. dollars to the fast-start finance.

Marlene Moses, Nauru's permanent representative to the UN and AOSIS chairwoman, said they remained concerned over the progress of negotiations on finance, said the statement.

"Developed countries have committed to mobilize 100 billion dollars per year by 2020 to fund adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. We need concrete commitments and clarity on finance including a mid-term target to assess the fulfillment of progress towards the achievement of the 100 billion dollar goal," Moses told parties at a stocktaking plenary session in Doha on issues covered so far at the negotiations.

"At Doha, developed countries should signal that the Green Climate Fund (GCF) will not be an empty shell by pledging towards its initial capitalization and mandating the Board of the Fund to initiate the Fund's replenishment process at its first meeting in 2013," Moses was quoted as saying.

The GCF is the mechanism under the UN Framework Convention ( UNFCCC) on Climate Change to transfer funds from the developed to the developing world, in order to assist the developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter climate change.

The 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol opened last Monday and continues until Friday at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar. Endi

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