The funds will be given over the period of next four years, said French President Francois Hollande.
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France is promising eight billion euros over the next five years for investment in renewable energy in Africa and to increase Africans’ access to electricity.
Of that, one third is to help the continent develop renewable energy. African leaders at the meeting called on rich countries to step up their efforts.
The climate conference began Monday with an unprecedented gathering of world leaders outside Paris.
A project titled, the “Great Green Wall”, which aimed to create a barrier of trees from the Sahel in west Africa to the Sahara in the east will now focus on creating pockets of trees to revive the soil.
Later Tuesday, President Barack Obama was meeting in Paris with envoys from island nations hit hard by rising seas and increasingly violent storms, which scientists attribute to climate change prompted by man-made carbon emissions. People familiar with developments described the differences as different approaches of the sides on the issue of combating climate change and ensuring development at the same time.
“Though Africa is not responsible for emitting greenhouse gases, it is suffering the consequences of climate change”, Hollande said. The World Bank is calling for “climate justice” for the continent.
Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in general less emotional, said that concluding a universal climate change agreement in Paris was “a question of the future of humanity”.
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A group of 43 countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change are now calling for a new deal to limit global warming to 1.5º C above pre-industrial levels, rather than the two-degree target the Paris meeting hopes to reach.
