The United States is hopeful industrialized nations can raise $30 billion in aid that was pledged last year to help developing countries fight global climate change.
US climate envoy Todd Stern said today the United States, the European Union and Japan are working hard toward coming up with the funding, which was promised over a three-year period starting this year.
"I'm confident a number approaching $30 billion... will be provided," Stern told reporters in Beijing. "A lot of work is being done to put that together."
The pledge was among the few concrete results that came out of a UN climate summit in Copenhagen last December. The aid is to help poor nations combat and cope with the effects of climate change, including droughts or floods.
Many environmentalists and political leaders had hoped that the summit would produce a legally binding treaty on curbing the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, but in the end came up with only the nonbinding Copenhagen Accord.
The United Nations has urged rich countries to live up to their promises of help in order to make headway toward forging a global climate deal at another major conference planned for the end of the year in Cancun, Mexico.
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China has insisted that developed countries have a responsibility to help developing nations with funding and technology in the fight against climate change because industrialized nations have historically emitted the bulk of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Stern, who was in China as part of a large US delegation for strategic and economic talks, said that three days of meetings with senior Chinese officials were "constructive" though no new measures were reached.
He said he wants the funding process to be transparent so other nations can see that industrialized nations are sincere in their attempts to help poor nations combat climate change.
"All the funding won't be flowing by the time of Cancun... But I think we ought to, and it's our intention to give some accounting of where we are in the funding process. I hope we'll be able to do that by Cancun," he said.