Africa needs 65 billion dollars (44 billion euros) to deal with the effects of global warming, Burkina Faso's environment minister said on Friday at the opening of a special forum on climate change.

The seventh World Forum on Sustainable Development comes just two months before a critical UN climate summit in Copenhagen set to seal a planet-saving global deal.

"We think 65 billion dollars are needed to deal with the effects of climate change on a continental scale. That is to say that our expectations are very high," Salifou Sawadogo, one of the forum's organisers, told AFP at the opening of the event.

At the forum organised by the government of Burkina Faso together with the United Nations and the African Union, several African heads of state will meet key policy makers to discuss the opportunities climate change could offer for sustainable development.

Experts say Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the regions most affected by global warming. The World Bank estimates that the developing world will suffer about 80 percent of the damage of climate change despite accounting for only around one third of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

"We are all on the same planet so there is a duty of solidarity to help the most vulnerable countries, like we are, implement policies to adapt to climate change," Sawadogo said.

His comments come as crunch UN climate talks held in Bangkok drew to a close on Friday with the rift between the rich and the poor countries still wide open.

A key point of contention remains how much money wealthy nations are willing to cough up to help developing ones deal with climate change.