The U.S. won a significant victory at the U.N. climate summit last week when it preserved the ability of developing countries to contribute, if they so choose, to a multibillion-dollar global warming fund.

Yet while leaders from Mexico and South Korea say they are eager to help capitalize the Green Climate Fund, some of the world's fastest-growing developing nations say they have little interest in doing so. Leaders of some of the so-called BASIC countries of Brazil, South Africa, India and China as well as other wealthy emerging nations said at the Durban, South Africa, conference, that the fund must be first filled with dollars from wealthy industrialized nations.

Ban Ki-Moon (center) poses with climate negotiators from the BASIC group. From left to right they are: Chinese Vice Minister Xie Zhenhua; India's Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan; South Africa's Environment Minister Edna Molewa and Brazil's Ambassador Luiz Figueiredo Machado. Photo courtesy of IISD Reporting Services

"Will India contribute to the Green Climate Fund? No. Not at this time," Indian Environment Minister Jayanti Natrajan told ClimateWire in the hallways of Durban's International Convention Centre.

"We give a lot of money outside the context of climate change, but within the context of climate change we have to play by the rules," added Qatar's lead negotiator Ali Hamed Abdulla Ali al-Mulla. Despite having one of the world's highest per-capita GDPs, Qatar, under the U.N. climate regime, is considered a non-Annex I, or developing, country. "We are not supposed to contribute," al-Mulla said.

And Brazilian Amb. Luiz Figueiredo Machado -- seeming to ignore former President Luiz Inacio Lula's 2009 speech in Copenhagen, Denmark, in which he emphatically announced that the leading South American economy would be willing to "put money also to help the other countries," sidestepped the question.

"I have no elements at this point in time to give you a direct reply on what any of the BASIC countries will do," Figueiredo said. Instead, he noted that developed nations had committed to helping vulnerable countries address climate change to the tune of $30 billion by 2012, increasing to $100 billion annually by 2020.

The question of whether major developing countries will chip in is just one of several tensions that still exist surrounding the Green Climate Fund. Aimed at helping vulnerable countries protect themselves from climate impacts and develop low-carbon energy systems, the fund's basic architecture was approved in Durban. But negotiators punted on a number of key issues -- most prominently decisions about from where the money will come.

Developing countries and environmental groups pushed for a roadmap with timetables and targets for scaling up finance after 2012 and making final decisions about ultimate sources. Negotiators from several countries said the U.S. blocked almost all discussions of raising the $100 billion. Ultimately, developed countries only committed to workshops aimed at exploring decisions about finding the money, but the Durban agreements do not call for a decision by a fixed date.

A money pool with plumbing, but no water

"The fund is still empty," said David Waskow, climate policy adviser for Oxfam America. Likening the Green Fund to a plumbing system, he said, "We have the pipes, and the pipes are in quite good shape, but the water is lacking."

Oxfam and others have been pushing for a carbon price on shipping to help capitalize the fund as well as creating what Waskow called a "double dividend" of also reducing emissions. He estimated that a $25-per-ton-of-carbon charge would reduce between 5-10 percent of global emissions as well as developing about $25 billion annually. He estimated about $10 billion to $15 billion of that would go toward the Green Fund.

"There is political momentum for this option," he said, noting that the International Chamber of Shipping recently signed on to the idea of a maritime carbon levy. Yet while a shipping levy was included in the final drafts of U.N. documents in Durban, countries rejected its ultimate inclusion.

Another area of growing concern is the World Bank's Climate Investment Funds (CIFs), which have so far distributed more than $6 billion for a variety of clean energy plans from Turkey to the Philippines. According to Ari Huhtala, a senior environmental specialist on the World Bank's climate change team who spoke along with Waskow and others at the Wilson Center this week, the CIFs leverage between $3 and $8 of private finance from every $1 of public aid.

Yet despite the widespread acknowledgement of the CIFs' success, some activists say they worry that they will siphon money from what should be going to the Green Climate Fund.

"Politically at the moment, it would send a fundamentally wrong message to basically go on putting additional money into the CIFs while we have no commitment ... to putting substantial amounts into the Green Climate Fund," said Liane Schalatek, associate director of the Hienrich Boll Foundation in D.C.

A "sunset clause" for the CIFs was a central demand of environmental groups when the program was designed, with many activists fearing that the World Bank would become the main source of climate finance. Huhtala this week said he expects the CIFs will sunset or be folded into the Green Fund when that fund is "sufficiently capitalized." But he also noted that the bank has approved low-carbon development plans for a number of countries and that work should also not stop.

Time for finance ministers to take part

"It's a question of doing something now," Huhtala said. Ultimately he noted that how and when the CIFs fold into the Green Fund is something to be decided by the Green Fund board, which does not yet exist.

Over at the Center for American Progress, analysts took in stride the absence of money in the Green Fund, essentially agreeing with U.S. leaders that finance ministers -- not climate negotiators -- are best suited to decide on funding flows. They also praised a Durban decision that allows the Green Fund to mobilize private finance, an element they called key.

Richard Caperton, a senior energy policy analyst at CAP, called sovereign wealth funds a "huge untapped source" that could be used for climate finance. But drawing on both private and public capital to not only give grants but also offer loan guarantees and other finance options will enable the Green Fund to pay for a bigger and more diverse set of projects than it would otherwise, he said.

"The risk-sharing benefit would be completely lost if all the Green Climate Fund did was take contributions from countries and hand out grants," Caperton said. "We need to think about this as more than just developed countries writing a check. ... It has to be more sophisticated than this."

Meanwhile CAP Senior Fellow Andrew Light said he isn't surprised that a number of developing country climate negotiators have been throwing cold water on the idea of contributing to the Green Fund. With Korea and Mexico as models, he said that dynamic could easily change.

"They need to defend their legitimacy back home," Light said of climate negotiators' hardliner positions. But, he added, "The question is, will the finance ministries in these countries see the Green Climate Fund as an investment opportunity? Because so many of these countries are already investing in countries around the world."

With the current mandate for climate assistance expiring in 2012, Waskow said time is short for countries to decide how they will ramp up dollars to meet the 2020 pledge. Calling it "not a technical problem but a political one," he argued that leaders must make key decisions in the next two fiscal years if the Green Climate Fund hopes to see a healthy level of financing. He said he hopes to see a number of elements set in place at the next U.N. climate summit in Doha, Qatar, next year.

"It is going to be essential that countries come to Doha ready to put funds, significant funds, toward the Green Climate Fund," he said.