COPENHAGEN — The European Union on Friday pledged 7.2 billion euros ($10.6 billion) to help poor nations battle global warming, upping the stakes at the U.N. climate summit.

The money, to be spent over three years, ramps up pressure on rich countries to do more at the summit, where a text of a draft statement sets a target of limiting global warming to 1.5 or 2.0 degrees C (2.7 or 3.6 degrees F).

The E.U. money was immediately welcomed in Copenhagen. “The fact that Europe is going to put a figure on the table will, I think, be hugely encouraging to the process,” said U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer. “We will then have to see what other rich countries are going to put on the table.”

At the E.U. summit in Brussels, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the European accord “a very significant move forward in the search for a Copenhagen agreement.” Britain is pledging 1.2 billion pounds (1.3 billion euros, $2 billion) — more than any other E.U. member state — despite Britain weathering its worse recession in decades.

But Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose nation holds the rotating E.U. presidency, acknowleged that the 7.2 billion euros was “a combination of new and old resources” — confirming environmentalists’ fears about the true extent of the initiative.

“Short-term funding is necessary, but there is a risk that this will be used to greenwash an outcome which is weak and doesn’t have any structural needs-based funding,” Greenpeace E.U. campaigner Joris den Blanken said.

China expressed skepticism, too, saying three years is too small a time frame to be significant. “This is not the key. It will be relatively easy for developed countries to come up with a number for the short term for three years. But what shall we do after three years?” Chinese vice foreign minister He Yafei said in Copenhagen. “People say we need to commit to a target for 2050.”

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