Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, leader of the African delegation to the UN Copenhagen Climate conference, publicly acknowledged that the summit was a letdown. During a press conference, Meles said that “all nations did not get what they had best hoped for, with some not even achieving" the minimum they had asked for pointing to the summit being a disappointment. He added that the absence of a legally binding treaty for carbon emissions was the biggest disappointment.
African nations had initially asked for $350 billion a year in compensation toward renewable energy (Industrialized Countries to Spend $350M for RE). However, Meles suggested that $50 billion a year by 2015 and $100 billion by 2020 from developed nations would be a sufficient amount (African Leader Suggests Less $$$ for Africa’s RE). The G77 group of 130 countries, backed by the least developed countries and small island states, had long proposed that $400 billion a year, or 1% of rich countries’ GDP, would be the appropriate figure. Meles also proposed that 50% of the fund created should be allocated to vulnerable and poor countries as well as "regions such as Africa and small island states.”
However, according to the Ethiopian PM, Africa’s share in the $10 billion to be allotted beginning next year remained ambiguous within the so-called Copenhagen Accord (only signed by five countries to date).