Brussels, Sep 10 (DPA) European taxpayers should be prepared to pay up to 15 billion euros ($21.9 billion) per year to help poorer nations confront climate change, officials in Brussels said Thursday.

The European Union's executive, the European Commission, moved to take the lead in the world fight against global warming by being the first major player to quantify, at around 100 billion euros (around $146 billion) per year by 2020, the amount of funding that developing countries will need to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to rising temperatures.

While much of this money should come from the private sector, including from an expanded international carbon market, and from domestic sources, rich nations should provide public financing worth between 22 and 50 billion euros per year, EU officials said.

Depending on how large the rich countries' overall handout is, the EU should expect to pay between 2 billion and 15 billion euros per year as its share of the total, the commission said.

Major polluters such as the US, China and India have so far been reluctant to estimate the cost of global warming, with each side keeping their cards close to their chest.

With Thursday's move, the EU hopes to pile pressure on its partners ahead of key UN talks in December in Copenhagen.

The aim of the meeting in the Danish capital is to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emission levels, which expires in 2012.