European Union leaders have reached an agreement on a proposal to present at the upcoming global climate talks in Copenhagen in December. They have resolved a disagreement on how to divide the costs, with developing countries requiring 100 billion euros by 2020 to combat climate change. A portion of this amount, estimated to be between 22-50 billion euros, will come from the public funds of wealthy nations, including the EU. The EU is expected to contribute between 20-30 percent of this amount, a development hailed as a major breakthrough by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. East European countries expressed that the summit successfully resolved a disagreement on how to divide the EU's bill in a manner that would not negatively impact their economies as they strive to recover from crisis. The Polish minister for Europe, Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, viewed this as a victory for Poland and emphasized the desire for rapid development, rather than remaining stagnant as a cultural relic of eastern Europe. Despite this progress, leaders did not reach a definitive agreement on how to allocate the bill and delegated this task to a new working group. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed his preference for the burden-sharing mechanism to be ready now, but acknowledged that it was too challenging. The two-day summit secured a negotiating mandate for the Copenhagen talks to find a successor to the expiring Kyoto Protocol, with success likely dependent on financial support. Developing countries insist on adequate funds from wealthy nations, who bear most responsibility for environmental damage, to address climate change. These funds could be used for agricultural adaptation or water source diversification in drought-prone areas. The plans for "fast start" financing for developing nations in the three years before a new climate deal takes effect were put on hold by European leaders. Oxfam criticized Europe's proposal as insufficient and lacking guarantees that the money would not be taken from existing aid commitments. Elise Ford from Oxfam warned that if rich countries use aid budgets to pay their climate debt, it could set back the fight against poverty. The opposition from east European countries decreased after Sweden, which led the talks, brought up the issue of "hot air" - the 17 billion euros worth of carbon permits held by eastern Europe. These countries, along with Russia and Ukraine, have spare permits for about 9 billion tonnes of carbon emissions due to their economies collapsing after the end of communist rule. The extra permits, called AAUs, can be sold to major polluters like Japan for around 10 euros per ton. Eastern European nations are in favor of continuing to sell AAUs in the new agreement that will replace Kyoto. However, some countries like Germany believe that this undermines the agreement's integrity and want to eliminate them because they reduce the urgency to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Sweden secured support from eastern Europe for the overall agreement by agreeing to postpone any significant action on AAUs, according to an EU diplomat. The agreement also includes commitments to reduce domestic emissions, with a promise to increase cuts to 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 if other countries do the same.