In an effort to push global climate change talks forward, the European Union last week offered to pay up to 15 billion euros per year to help poorer nations confront climate change.

That adds up to about 100 billion euros by 2020, the amount of funding that developing countries will need to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to rising temperatures, according to officials.

Much of the money is expected to come from the private sector, including from an expanded international carbon market as well as from domestic sources. But wealthy nations should provide public financing worth between 22 and 50 billion euros per year, EU officials said. This means somewhere between 2 and 15 billion euros per country.

“With less than 90 days before Copenhagen we need to make serious progress in these negotiations,” press reports quote European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso as saying. “That is why the commission is putting the first meaningful proposal on the table on how we might finance [the fight against] climate change.”

He added: ”The sums involved are potentially significant – both ambitious and fair – but will only get higher if we delay.”