Gordon Brown tried to break the deadlock over climate change yesterday by proposing the creation of a £60 billion international fund to help poorer countries adapt to the situation. He also raised the prospect that higher air fares could play a part in the worldwide effort to combat global warming.

Among the methods for raising finance to be explored, he said, aviation and maritime emissions should be brought into the Copenhagen agreement — a new concordat that leaders hope will be approved in December.

Making his proposal to help the developing nations adopt clean technology, Mr Brown said it was time to think not in terms of the political and economic cycles, but of “epochs and eras”, of how today’s stewardship by the leading countries would be seen by “tomorrow’s children”.

Proposals to tax flights and shipping, or include them in emissions trading schemes, are likely to be some of the most difficult to negotiate. Unveiling Britain’s manifesto for Copenhagen, the Prime Minister said advanced countries must provide assistance to developing nations to enable their economies to grow while adapting to the changing global climate.

He proposed a “working figure” of $100 billion dollars (£61.9 billion) a year by 2020 to be financed through the growth of the international carbon market, with a limited amount of development aid. Mr Brown committed Britain to paying its “fair share” and said others should to do the same.

He said: “If we act now, if we act together, if we act with vision and resolve, success at Copenhagen is within reach. But if we falter, the earth itself will be at risk.” The Copenhagen summit is seen as the last chance to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto agreement, which expires in 2012.

Finance is one of the key sticking points, as poorer nations demand huge amounts of cash and rich nations prove reluctant to commit. The British figure is less than developing nations say they need — but will provide a negotiating position at the approaching G8 meeting in Italy, when the leaders of emerging nations will join for a special climate summit chaired by President Obama. Britain is committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 and says the rest of the world must follow if global temperature rises are to be kept to 2C.

Mr Brown stressed that Britain was on track to exceed the targets agreed under the Kyoto protocol. But recent figures from the Stockholm Institute have thrown a somewhat different light on Britain’s performance.

Its climate department says that although China’s total emissions are immense, the average European is responsible for emitting twice as much greenhouse gases as the average individual in China. But the official tallydoes not include aviation and shipping and it takes no account of emissions embedded in imported goods.

When these are taken into account, the institute calculates that the average Briton pollutes almost five times more than the average Chinese. Oxfam welcomed Mr Brown’s announcement but said it did not go far enough. Its chief executive, Barbara Stocking, said at least $150 billion a year was needed and condemned the proposal to draw on development aid.

“It is simply wrong that any solution should involve plundering aid money — even if only 10 per cent,” she said.

Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace, said: “At last a G8 leader is talking about the right order of magnitude, billions instead of millions. Without these kind of sums there won’t be a deal in Copenhagen, and without a deal the world faces a grave future.”

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