European finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg failed to agree who will pay what to help developing countries fight global warming after Poland led opposition to plans to boost funding by billions of euros.

Oxfam and other leading non-governmental organisations (NGOs) urged European leaders to put new money on the table, saying it is a "make or break issue" ahead of crunch UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December.

In a joint statement issued in London, they warned that the failure to promise new funding when EU heads of state meet later this month "could scupper a deal on climate change and set back the fight against poverty".

Britain has pushed for climate financing to be delivered on top of aid commitments, but failed to win support in Brussels for its proposals to limit the amount of aid used for climate change to ten percent, the NGOs said.

"Europe should not cannibalise aid budgets to meet its responsibilities on climate change," said Elise Ford, the head of Oxfam's European office.

"The world's poorest communities should not be forced to choose between building flood defences and building schools. European leaders must put new money on the table now."

Rob van Drimmelen, head of Aprodev, which coordinates the NGOs' work in Europe, added: "Failing to stump up new money essentially passes the climate bill onto the world's poorest countries.

"The risk is that EU is abdicating its leadership role and failing to assume its historical responsibility for climate change.

"It is absurd to ask the world's poor to pay the bill for decades of unlimited emissions in our part of the world."

Signatories to the letter were Oxfam, ActionAid, the CIDSE alliance of Catholic development agencies, Cafod, Aprodev, Tearfund and Concord.

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