LONDON - One hundred senior legislators from around the globe meeting in Rome Friday called on the world’s wealthiest eight countries to transfer up to $140 billion per year to developing countries while “laying their cards on the table” to help fight climate change.

The legislators, including five from India, said it was imperative for the Group of Eight (G8) countries to state exactly how much of their individual carbon emissions they intended to cut well before world leaders meet in Copenhagen in December to agree upon a final climate change strategy.

G8 leaders must “lay their cards on the table when they meet in Italy later this month and stand and deliver on climate change, instead of delaying until December’s Copenhagen summit,” said the legislators, who are grouped as the Global Legislators Organisation (GLOBE).

The lawmakers, who include Copenhagen host and Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rassumssen, want developed countries to transfer between $90 billion and $140 billion per year to developing countries to help them fund the incremental costs of tackling climate change.

“Otherwise emerging economies such as China and India will not be under any obligation to develop their own ambitious proposals - essential if Copenhagen is to result in an effective post-2012 deal,” they said.

The legislators include five Indian MPs - Prakash Javadekar, Bhubaneswar Kalita, L. Rajgopal, Sanjay Nirupam and P.D Rai.

The lawmakers want the G8 - comprising America, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia - to make a commitment that assistance for the developing world should not come from existing aid budgets.

“Currently, the only finance that has been promised is a paltry amount from the UNFCCC’s Adaptation Fund - which comes from a levy on the Clean Development Mechanism and is totally out of scale with the tens of billions of dollars that will be required each year up until 2050,” said GLOBE policy director Terry Townshend.