Bangkok: Developing countries will need as much as $100 billion (Dh367 billion) per year until 2050 to adapt to climate change, an amount that would nearly double current foreign aid flows from developed nations, the World Bank said.

Poorer nations need between $75 billion and $100 billion annually to "enjoy the same level of welfare in the future world as they would have without climate change", the World Bank said in a report released yesterday in Bangkok, where envoys met to discuss a global environmental accord.

Rich countries gave a record $119.8 billion in aid last year, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

"The World Bank study makes plain that taking action in favour of adaptation now can result in future savings and reduce unacceptable risks," Bert Koenders, the Netherlands' minister for Development Cooperation, said.

"At this point, the costs this will entail can still be borne by the international community."

Negotiators aiming to adopt a new international climate protection agreement by December have yet to agree on how much money wealthier countries should give poorer nations to adapt to climate change. The analysis needed for a package of climate-change financing is still "incomplete", Jonathan Pershing, the lead negotiator for the US, said two days ago.

The World Bank study calculated the amount of money it would take for countries to adapt to a world that is about two degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels in 2050. That level of warming would lead to "more intense" rainfall, droughts, floods, heat waves and other "extreme weather events", the study said.

A four degree Celsius rise would "significantly increase the likelihood of irreversible and potentially catastrophic impacts such as the extinction of half of species worldwide, inundation of 30 per cent of coastal wetlands", and increases in malnutrition and disease, the Bank said.

Funding should go to building infrastructure, ensuring a safe water supply, protecting coastal zones, increasing agricultural productivity and fighting diseases that flourish in warmer weather, the report said. Money should also be spent on mitigating the impact of severe weather events.

Group of 20 leaders last week in Pittsburgh put off tackling how to help poor nations deal with climate change, directing finance ministers to report in November on "a range of possible options" for the world's most vulnerable countries.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said yesterday that "many" world leaders expressed support on committing $100 billion annually over the next decade to help countries adapt to climate change.

Delegates in Bangkok are trying to shorten a negotiating text that's almost 200 pages long.

hey head to Barcelona in November for more talks before a December summit in Copenhagen to draw up an accord to extend or replace the 1997 Kyoto treaty, the current climate-protection accord.

Copenhagen only needs to deliver money to deal with immediate needs even though ultimately "hundreds of billions" of dollars will be needed annually in climate financing, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said on September 28.