Wealthy economies -- namely the United States, Japan and European Union -- have promised billions of dollars to poor countries in what has become a key component of a future global treaty on climate change.

Chief US climate negotiator Todd Stern told Congress that such investment was "in our national interest" and quoted a World Bank study saying that every dollar spent on disaster preparedness saved $7 in disaster response.

"It will strengthen our international posture, contribute to our own economic growth and help build a clean energy world less exposed and more resilient to the very real dangers of climate change," Stern told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

"Countries around the world see climate change as a core challenge. Whether you agree or disagree with that, it is vital to US diplomatic leverage and to US long-term interests to be seen as part of the solution," Stern said.

President Barack Obama took office in 2009 vowing to play a constructive role fighting climate change, shifting course from his predecessor George W. Bush whose Republican Party includes many doubters of global warming.

The Republicans last year made strong gains in elections to Congress, which controls government funding, and have fought Obama both on efforts to limit carbon emissions blamed for climate change and on foreign aid.

Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican who heads the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee in charge of oversight, poured scorn on United Nations-led climate diplomacy and pledges of financial assistance.

"With a federal budget in massive deficit and an economy that has yet to pull itself out of a deep recession," he said, "the expectation that the United States will be footing a major share of the bill for such a UN fund is pure fantasy."

Rohrabacher, who represents a district in southern California, said that climate aid amounted to an effort to shift the balance of the global economy away from the United States, Europe, Japan and other developed powers.

"I'm not sure that's what we want to do to achieve progress among the human race -- to penalize modernization and success," he said.

UN-led talks in December in Cancun, Mexico, agreed to set up a Green Climate Fund to help the poorest countries combat climate change, with wealthy nations contributing $100 billion each year starting in 2020.

The assistance is aimed largely at small islands and sub-Saharan African countries that experts say bear much of the burden but little of the blame for higher temperatures and resultant rising sea levels.

Stern told Rohrabacher, a staunch critic of China, that he did not envision Beijing receiving assistance and hoped major developing countries would consider contributions of their own. China has surpassed the United States as the world's largest carbon emitter.

The developed world has also promised some $30 billion between 2010 and 2012 in so-called "fast-track" assistance to jumpstart climate assistance.

A survey by Clifford Polycarp of the World Resources Institute found that rich countries have pledged $28 billion in fast-track finance but that there was a lack of transparency and consistency in how the money is reported.

Japan has pledged by far the most at $15 billion, followed by European Union members at $10.3 billion (7.2 billion euros), the survey said. The United States has kept its promises vague and budgeted $1.7 billion in the 2010 fiscal year.

Major emerging economies including China, India and South Africa -- the host of the next UN climate conference starting in November -- have urged quicker action on fast-track financing.

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