The bank, known as the EIB, will invest 50 million euros, with 25 million euros each coming from Caisse des Depots and KfW Bankengruppe, 15 million euros from the Nordic Investment Bank and 10 million euros from Instituto de Crédito Oficial, EIB and partners said today in an e-mailed statement.

The Post 2012 Carbon Credit Fund will invest in developing renewable energy, carbon dioxide capture and energy efficiency projects, generating tradable emission credits starting 2013, potentially the first year of a new international climate- protection agreement. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol has a compliance period of the five years through 2012.

"Uncertainty over the form of any post Kyoto carbon credit trading regime is currently making it difficult for environmentally worthwhile projects to monetize fully the economic benefits of the emission reductions they may make after 2012,'' the statement said.

The fund will be managed by a consortium of Conning Asset Management (Europe) Ltd., a unit of Swiss Reinsurance, and First Climate, an emissions project developer and fund manager based in Bad Vilbel, Germany.