The failure is fostering deep distrust between rich and poor nations and is undermining negotiations on a global climate deal.

The world’s richest countries have together pledged nearly $18b in the past seven years, but despite world leaders’ rhetoric that the finance is vital, less than $900m has been disbursed and long delays are plaguing many funds.

Diplomats and U.N. climate talks negotiators have warned that a global agreement on climate change to succeed the Kyoto treaty is at risk if rich countries do not make the money available.

“It is poisoning the U.N. negotiations,” said Bernarditas Muller of the Philippines, chief negotiator for the G77 and China group of developing countries. “What [the rich countries] offer ... is derisory, the equivalent of one banker’s bonus.”

The analysis also found that the poorest countries have received the least help from the rich.

The analysis was based on data collected by the independent Overseas Development Institute in London and confirmed by the U.N. It found that: Britain has pledged nearly $1.5b but has so far deposited less than $300m.

Africa, the poorest continent, has received less than 12 per cent of all the climate fund money spent in the last four years. It can take poor countries more than three years to access money.

Most of the money promised for climate change comes out of official aid budgets, leaving less for health, education and poverty action.

The U.N. says $50b-$70b a year needs to be invested immediately to help poor countries adapt to extreme weather events. “Contributions to funds have been disappointingly low and the least developed countries have received very little,” said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which oversees the talks. “Without significant finance you will not get developing country engagement.”

Rich nations have accepted their moral responsibility for climate change, and are legally obliged by the Kyoto protocol to help poor countries pay to tackle climate change, but there is no enforcement or target. “The sums are ridiculously small and the whole system has broken down,” said Juan Lozano Ramirez, Colombia’s environment minister. “It is very risky for the U.N. negotiations and for mankind.”

So far, 12 rich countries, led by the U.K., Germany, Japan and the U.S., have pledged $6.1b to two climate investment funds administered by the World Bank. But no money has been deposited in them, and any money available will be in the form of loans, not grants.

The second big source of funds is the U.N., which through its financial arm, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), distributes nearly $250m a year to poor countries for climate change projects. Nearly one-third of the $760m distributed in the past three years has gone to China, India and Brazil. Less than $100m of this has gone to projects in the world’s 49 poorest countries.

Criticism centres on the GEF-administered Least-Developed Countries Fund (LDCF). In seven years, rich countries have deposited $172m, but only $47m has been disbursed. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2009