The first-round of the presidential elections
kicked off on Sunday in Chile amid tight security.
More than 8 million Chileans are expected to cast votes at 34,000 polling stations across the country. The polling is scheduled to last from 07:00 to 16:00 local time (1000 GMT to 1900 GMT) on Sunday.
Over 35,000 police officers have been mobilized nationwide to ensure the elections taking place smoothly and the police are on high alert against possible turmoil.
A run-off is scheduled for Jan. 17, 2010, if no candidate gains more than 50 percent of the
votes.
The winner will succeed incumbent President Michelle Bachelet on March 11, 2010.
Center-right leader Sebastian Pinera and center-left leader Eduardo Frei are front-runners,
according to pre-election surveys.
Norway, Mexico launch joint climate funding model
OSLO, Dec. 13 (Xinhua/GNA) -- Norway and Mexico on Saturday launched a joint model for climate funding at the climate change negotiations in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, said the Norwegian government.
The model, which seeks to set up a Green Fund for financing climate actions in developing countries, will be built on contributions from public budgets and auctions of UN allowances, according to a press release issued by the Norwegian prime minister's office.
The fund is set to start with about 10 billion U.S. dollars in 2013 and expected to reach 30 billion to 40 billion dollars by 2020.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg agreed
that it is crucial to reach an agreement on financing climate actions in developing countries in order to make the Copenhagen conference a success.
"We hope that through our joint proposal we can help develop a funding model everyone
can endorse," the two leaders was quoted by the press release as saying.
It is necessary to combine complementary sources of financing and this money should
finance adaption and mitigation efforts in developing ones, stressed the two leaders, noting
that financing should "be based on results."
The Saturday's joint model has combined both of the two sides' earlier proposals tabled
separately on the negotiations.
Norway's proposal is a model according to which a certain percentage of the total UN
allowances would be allocated for international auction to raise funds for climate actions in
developing nations.
In the mean time, Mexico had proposed to establish a Green Fund that assigns funding
quota based on each countries' emissions, the gross domestic product (GDP) and population.
The joint model defined that the most vulnerable countries, along with the least developed countries and small island developing countries, will be given priority of accepting fundings.
Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, developed nations
are committed to quantified emission reduction targets and provision of support in financing,
technology and capacity building to developing nations.